Cloudy skies and rainy weather greeted 22 visitors (20 students and 2 teachers) from the London District Catholic School Board Enrichment Opportunities Program, Grade 7, for Exploring the Stars at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Wednesday, February 21st, 2018, 12:30—2:30 p.m. PhD graduate and Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration (CPSX) Outreach Program Coordinator Parshati Patel, brought them over around noon to have lunch after a morning of activities with CPSX. They were greeted by graduate students Jeff Vankerkhove and Viraja Khatu. Jeff presented the digital slide presentation “Our Star – The Sun” and fielded questions. Jeff and Viraja then introduced the activity “Telescope Kits,” with the students assembling and testing the telescopes from small reusable kits. This was followed by the students dividing into 2 groups, who alternated between tours of the upstairs dome and the downstairs “Black Room.”
RASC London Centre was represented by Heather MacIsaac, Henry Leparskas and Bob Duff. Since cloudy wet weather at first ruled out opening the dome, the Cronyn Observatory’s 90mm Coronado H-Alpha Solar Telescope was set up inside the dome along with the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian. Heather MacIsaac, also set up her Celestron NexStar 90SLT 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain with a Kendrick (Baader film) Solar filter inside the dome. When the first group of students arrived upstairs in the dome, Bob gave a brief talk on some of the history and technical aspects of the big 25.4cm refractor, using the 52mm Erfle eyepiece (84X) for demonstration. Jeff followed this with a further description of the big telescope and, since it was no longer raining, he opened the dome and directed the big 25.4cm refractor towards the communications tower in south London. Jeff swapped in the Meade 28mm Super Wide Angle eyepiece (157X), in place the 52mm Erfle eyepiece, and invited the visitors to climb the observing ladder and view the tower through the 25.4cm refractor.
The 25.4cm Dobsonian and Heather’s Celestron NexStar 90SLT 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain were both moved outside onto the observation deck. The Sun was visible through hazy clouds but could not be seen through the Kendrick (Baader film) Solar filter on Heather’s 90mm Maksutov. Heather removed the solar filter and showed the students the communications tower through her 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain (32mm Plossl eyepiece (39X). Bob showed them the wind turbine on the Engineering building through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 66X).
Downstairs in the “Black Room” Viraja presented the “Transit Demonstration” activity, giving 2 demonstrations of the “Transit Demo” model—showing how the transit detection method worked for finding extra-solar planets, as well as 2 demonstrations of the “Spectroscopy Demo” with the visitors putting on diffraction grating glasses to view the spectra of 4 gas discharge lamps set out on the table, including: hydrogen, helium, neon and mercury.
Both groups of students alternated between the “Transit Demo” and Spectroscopy Demo” demonstrations in the “Black Room” and tours of the dome, with viewing through telescopes. The visitors were gone by around 2:30 p.m. after a very interesting morning and afternoon learning about astronomy at CPSX and the Cronyn Observatory.