As Reported by Everett Clark
Cloudy skies greeted 26 visitors (14 children and 12 adults / leaders) from the 88th London Sparks Unit for Exploring the Stars at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Wednesday, March 29th, 2017, 6:00 p.m. Graduate student Jeff Vankerkhove presented the digital slide presentation “The Scout / Guide Astronomy Badge” with the title slide “The Basics” and fielded questions. Jeff followed this with the activity “Kitchen Comet,” making a comet from dry ice and other materials.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark and Norm McCall. When everybody arrived upstairs in the dome, Jeff gave a brief talk about the big 25.4cm refractor. Everett had set up the London Centre’s home-built 30.5cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 88X) on the roof patio outside the dome and Everett and Norm showed the Sparks a red light on the construction crane and later the wind turbine on the Engineering building. The visitors were gone by around 7:30 p.m. after an enjoyable evening learning about astronomy, comets and telescopes.