Cloudy skies greeted 10 visitors from the Space Society of London (SSoL) for Exploring the Stars at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Thursday, November 5th, 2015, 6:30 p.m. Graduate student Tony Martinez presented the digital slide presentation “Extra Solar Planets” and fielded questions. Tony followed this with the activity “Transit Demo”, using the “Transit Demo” model—a kind of extra-solar planet orrery—to show how a planetary transit in front of another star could be observed. However, the “Transit Demo” model did not work.
RASC London Centre was represented by Paul Kerans and Peter Jedicke. Tony and Peter took the group up into the dome and Paul was asked to look at the “Transit Demo” model and try and get it working. Since it was cloudy the dome remained closed and the Paul did not set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian. Undergraduate student William Hyland brought his 6-inch (15cm) Sky-Watcher Dobsonian and set it up on the roof patio outside the dome and discussed its new features. However, they did not look at anything and it was windy. Paul distributed 2 “Getting Started in Astronomy” (RASC, SkyNews [2015]) pamphlets and 1 “Star Finder” planisphere. The group left around 8:15 p.m. after an interesting evening learning about the search for extra-solar planets and how they are discovered.