Cloudy skies with occasional snow flurries greeted 22 visitors (14 children and 8 adults) from the 81st and 98th London Girl Guides for Exploring the Stars at the Cronyn Observatory, Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Tony Martinez made the digital slide presentation “The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge”. Tony followed this with the activity “Telescope Kits”, with the children assembling small telescopes from reusable kits.
RASC London Centre was represented by Mark Tovey and Tricia Colvin, with Bob Duff arriving later around 8: 13 p.m. When everybody arrived upstairs in the dome, Mark gave a talk about the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome and also about the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian, set up just inside the door to the roof patio. Due to the cloudy weather and snow flurries the Guides were invited to view the wind turbine on the nearby Engineering building to the south. Tricia supervised as the visitors lined up to view the wind turbine through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X), which was set up just inside the dome door. Tricia and Mark put away the 25.4cm Dobsonian after everybody had viewed through it and the visitors were gone by around 8:30 p.m. after an enjoyable evening learning about astronomy.