Mostly cloudy skies with snow flurries greeted 21 visitors (12 children and 9 adults) from the 68th Beaver Group “A” Colony for Exploring the Stars at the Cronyn Observatory, Tuesday, February 25th, 2014, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Tony Martinez made the digital slide presentation “The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge” (adapted for the Cubs) and presented the sky charting software “Stellarium". Tony also demonstrated eclipses using 2 different size balls representing the Earth and the Moon with the slide projector light beam representing the Sun.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark and Bob Duff. Snow flurries seemed to rule out opening the dome and Bob gave a talk about the history and technical aspects of the big 25.4cm refractor. However, Everett soon alerted everybody to Jupiter appearing through the clouds and he opened the dome and directed the big 25.4cm refractor (32mm Erfle eyepiece, 137X) towards the planet. Bob also directed the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X), which was set up on the roof patio, towards Jupiter—glimpsed periodically through the clouds. When the planet was clouded out Bob invited a few visitors to view the weathervane on the Engineering building through the Dobsonian. However, everybody was delighted to view Jupiter through the telescopes.
When everybody came back downstairs into the lecture room Tony showed them how to assemble and use 20 “Star Finder” planispheres that Everett had selected for his distribution. Everybody was gone by 8:12 p.m. after an enjoyable and informative evening of astronomy.