Cloudy skies with damp, hazy weather greeted 22 visitors (11 children and 11 adults / leaders) from the 1st Lambeth Sparks for Exploring the Stars at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Tuesday, January 24th, 2017, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Kendra Kellogg presented the digital slide presentation “Constellations”and fielded questions. Kendra followed this with the constellations activity “Make Your Own Constellation / Constellation Detective” which involved the children in matching 4 constellation sketches displayed in a PowerPoint slide with the 4 night sky images provided to them on a laminated sheet. This was followed by the children drawing their own constellations from a given pattern of stars on transparency sheets with magic markers.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark and Bob Duff. When everybody arrived upstairs in the dome, Kendra gave them a brief tour of the big 25.4 cm refractor in the dome, using the 52mm Erfle eyepiece (84X) for demonstration. The dome remained closed due to the cloudy damp weather. Kendra also explained and showed them the mirror in the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian reflector telescope. Everett Clark had set up the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X) inside so as to view out the dome door and Kendra supervised as the Sparks viewed the red light on a construction crane behind the Engineering building. Kendra also briefly explained the Standard and Sidereal Time clocks on the east wall of the dome. The visitors were gone from the dome by around 7:35 p.m., after an enjoyable evening learning about the constellations and looking through the telescope.