Graduate student Tony Martinez made the digital slide presentation “Constellations” before 13 visitors from the 2nd London Beavers, including 7 Beavers, 2 small children and 4 adults, at the Cronyn Observatory for Exploring the Stars, Tuesday, January 28th, 2014, 6:30 p.m. This was followed by questions and then Tony immediately introduced the activity “Kitchen Comet”, making a comet from dry ice and other ingredients on a table at the front of the lecture room.
It was a cold clear night and RASC London Centre member Bob Duff set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X) on the roof patio outside the dome after shovelling away some of the snow. Bob opened and closed the dome briefly but it could not be rotated because of the snow and so the big 25.4cm refractor was not used for observing.
When the group came upstairs into the dome, Bob gave a talk about the history and technical aspects of the big 25.4cm refractor. Bob showed them Jupiter—with 2 moons visible and cloud belts on its surface noticeable—through the 25.4cm Dobsonian. Towards the end of the evening Bob showed 2 of the adults the Orion Nebula (M42) through the 25.4cm Dobsonian and gave them a brief sky tour of stars and constellations. Everybody was gone by around 8:15 p.m. after an enjoyable evening of astronomy, despite the cold weather.