Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Elisabella Micelotta made 2 presentations of her digital slide show, “Cosmic Fullerenes,” before audiences of 23 and 13, respectively, with 9 visitors, including children going upstairs to the dome and roof patio. A couple more people brought the estimated total to 47 visitors.
Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Reto Musci operated the big 25.4cm refractor in the dome, while graduate student Tyler August supervised visitors. The big refractor remained on Saturn throughout the evening, with the 28mm Meade Super Wide Angle eyepiece (157X).
RASC London Centre members Bob Duff, Dale Armstrong and Keith Burr set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian and the Observatory’s Meade 8-inch (203mm) LX3 Schmidt-Cassegrain on the roof patio. Dale took charge of the Schmidt-Cassegrain for the evening, showing visitors Saturn and Izar (Epsilon Bootes), with the 12.5mm Ortho eyepiece (160X), and M13, M5, M57 and Albireo, with the 18mm Radian eyepiece (111X).
Keith Burr operated the 25.4cm Dobsonian, showing visitors M57, Epsilon Lyrae, Albireo, Saturn, Mars, Mizar and Alcor, with the 17mm Nagler eyepiece (67X). He then used his 13mm Orion Stratus (88X) and 8mm Baader Hyperion (143X) eyepieces on Mars and Saturn. The sky was too bright to see the galaxies M51 and M31, using his 32mm Meade Series 5000 eyepiece (35.7X). He gave a sky tour of the Summer Triangle his green laser pointer. Keith and Bob Duff had nice conversations with a family from Vancouver on vacation in Ontario.
The Observatory was closed around 11:00 p.m. after a very interesting evening of astronomy under relatively clear skies.
Bob Duff
Higher Education Liaison
RASC London Centre