Cloudy skies greeted 28 visitors (26 students and 2 adults) from the Catholic Central High School Grade-9 class for Exploring the Stars at the Cronyn Observatory, Thursday, April 3rd, 2014, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Dilini Subasinghe made the digital slide presentation, Our Solar System with a few additional slides about Earth’s Moon. After fielding some questions, Dilini introduced the Constellations activity, distributing 28 Star Finder planispheres and helping people assemble them with Scotch tape. She used slides of the constellations to help everybody learn to use the Star Finder planispheres.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark and Bob Duff. Everett made ready the big 25.4cm refractor (32mm Erfle eyepiece, 137X) in the dome and set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X) on the Observatory’s roof patio, directing it towards the weathervane on the Engineering building. Bob directed the 25.4cm refractor towards the communications tower in south London. When everybody arrived upstairs in the dome, Bob gave a talk on the history of the Cronyn Observatory and the technical aspects of the big 25.4cm refractor. He also explained the 2 clocks on the east wall and the difference between Standard and Sidereal Time.
Since it was cloudy, Dilini and Everett supervised viewing of the communications tower through the 25.4cm refractor (32mm Erfle eyepiece, 137X) in the dome. Bob showed the visitors the weathervane on the Engineering building through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X). The event was over by around 8:10 p.m. although some students and the teacher remained for rides home until 8:30 p.m.