Cloudy skies greeted 20 visitors (16 children and 4 adults) from the 50th London Guides, to the Cronyn Observatory for Exploring the Stars, Thursday, December 5th, 2013, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Tony Martinez made the digital slide presentation “The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge.” Tony reported that the Guides were full of questions and so the presentation continued for over an hour—another great night for astronomy! There were 18 “Moon Gazers’ Guide” cards and one “Star Finder” planisphere distributed.
Tony brought everybody upstairs into the dome. Everett Clark represented the RASC London Centre. Since it was cloudy, Everett set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian, with 17mm Nagler eyepiece (66X), on the roof patio outside the dome and showed them the weathervane on the Engineering building. The Guides also lined up inside the dome to view the communications tower in south London through the big 25.4cm refractor, using the 32mm Erfle eyepiece (137X). It was a very enjoyable evening of astronomy and the visitors were gone by 8:24 p.m.