Cloudy skies greeted 20 visitors (15 children and 5 adults) to the Cronyn Observatory for Exploring the Stars, Tuesday, October 15th, 2013, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Parshati Patel made the digital slide presentation “Constellations.” This was followed by an activity in which she distributed 15 “Star Finder” planispheres and showed the children how to assemble and use them.
Since it was cloudy, graduate student Dilini Subasinghe showed them the lights on the communications tower in south London through the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome, using the 32mm Erfle eyepiece (137X). RASC London Centre member Everett Clark set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian with the 17mm Nagler eyepiece (66X) on the roof patio and showed the visitors the weathervane on the roof of the Engineering building. Everybody was gone by 8:00 p.m. after an enjoyable evening of astronomy despite the clouds.