Mostly cloudy skies greeted the 54th London Beavers & Cubs Group to the Cronyn Observatory on Wednesday, October 10th, 6:45 p.m. Graduate student Tyler Desjardins made the digital slide presentation, The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge, and this was followed by a tour of the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome.
There were 38 visitors for the slide presentation, including 19 children and 19 adults. They were joined by 2 more adults towards the end of the presentation, bringing the total to 40 visitors, including 19 children and 21 adults.
RASC London Centre members Everett Clark and Bob Duff set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian and the Observatory’s 8-inch (20.3cm) Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain on the roof patio. Ryan Fraser, who accompanied his son to the event, also assisted before rejoining the group for the slide presentation.
Bringing the group upstairs into the dome, Tyler showed the visitors the red and white lights on the communications tower in south London through the big 25.4cm refractor, with the 32mm Erfle eyepiece (137X). Everett showed them the weathervane on the Engineering Building roof through the 25.4cm Dobsonian using the 17mm Nagler eyepiece (66X) and Bob showed them the communications tower through the Schmidt-Cassegrain, using the 26mm Plossl eyepiece (77X).
The event was over by around 8:10 p.m. and everybody was very appreciative of the opportunity to learn something about astronomy and look through telescopes, despite the clouds.
Bob Duff
Higher Education Liaison
RASC London Centre