Partly cloudy skies with hazy clouds greeted 23 visitors (13 children and 10 adults) from the 67th Brownies of London for Exploring the Stars at the Cronyn Observatory, Tuesday, March 18th, 2014, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Tony Martinez made the digital slide presentation “The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge” and followed this with the activity, “Constellations” using the sky charting software, software, “Stellarium”. Tony used a small soft plastic globe of the Earth and a smaller ball representing the Moon and the beam from the projector lamp representing the Sun to demonstrate the phases of the Moon and eclipses. Tony gave the Brownie Leader 20 “Star Finder” planispheres for later distribution to the group and showed her how to assemble and use them.
Everett Clark and Bob Duff represented RASC London Centre. Everett made ready the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome and set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian on the roof patio. Bob showed the visitors Jupiter through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X). The 4 Galilean moons were visible to the left of Jupiter. Everett showed the visitors Jupiter through the big 25.4cm refractor, using first the 32mm Erfle eyepiece (137X) and then the 18mm Radian eyepiece (244X). Seeing conditions were good and the view through the 18mm Radian eyepiece was spectacular, with cloud belts on Jupiter’s surface and the 4 Galilean moons visible. Everybody was gone by 8:15 p.m. after a very successful and enjoyable evening of astronomy.