Partly cloudy, later mostly clear skies, greeted 4 adult visitors of a private group for Exploring the Stars at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Monday, March 28th, 2016, 7:00 p.m. Graduate student Shannon Hicks presented the digital slide presentation “Constellations” and fielded questions. Shannon followed this with the activity “Kitchen Comet”, making a comet from dry ice and other materials on a table set up at the front of the lecture room.
RASC London Centre was represented by Everett Clark, Paul Kerans and Bob Duff. Paul set up the London Centre’s 25.4cm Dobsonian on the roof patio outside the dome, installing the 26mm Tele Vue Plossl eyepiece (43X) belonging to the most recently donated of the observatory’s two 8-inch (20.3cm) Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes. Paul also set up his Nikon 10 X 50mm binoculars on his Orion Parallelogram Mount and tripod. Everett set up the observatory’s Orion AstroView 6 (15cm) Newtonian reflector (25mm Plossl eyepiece, 30X) on the Sky-Watcher EQ5 mount, used for the 90mm Coronado H-Alpha solar telescope.
Shannon, with some assistance from Bob, directed the big 25.4cm refractor (32mm Erfle eyepiece, 137X) to show the visitors Jupiter, later swapping in the 28mm Meade Super Wide Angle eyepiece (157X) for a better view. Paul and Bob showed visitors Jupiter through the Orion AstroView 6 (15cm) Newtonian reflector, with the 10mm Plossl eyepiece (75X) swapped in for a very nice view. Visitors also viewed Jupiter and the Orion Nebula (M42) through the 25.4cm Dobsonian (26mm Tele Vue Plossl eyepiece, 43X).