AWHC & ACC

Yesterday I met with Chris Schultz out at the American West Heritage Center in preparation for the Giant Star Party on 12 August 2011. I will once again be giving Stellarium Presentations about the Perseid meteor shower in the Livery Stable at 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, & 10:30 pm. The event goes from 7 pm to 11 pm, and there will be pony rides, wagon rides, storytellers, Dr Quakenbush (sorry Dr Q if I spelled that wrong), a glow-in-the-dark carnival, and a gunfight! Anyone who brings a telescope gets in free, otherwise it's $6.

Meanwhile, on the Artemisian Costumers Challenge I haven't made much progress. Moving will do that to you. Oh, btw, my hubby & I bought a house! I did, however, find some linen curtains at a yard sale for 50¢.

Success in Small Steps

The last day of Summer Astronomy Camp did not go off without a hitch, but it did go well. Stellarium hadn't been installed on the computers, so I tried calling the guy again, but only got voicemail. So we went outside, and I taught the kids to find an object with a small telescope or binoculars, then to align a finder scope with a bigger scope, and find an object in the large scope using the finder scope. Almost started a fire when I was showing them how to move the big scope around by accidentally pointing it at the Sun for a few seconds. But never heard back from the guy, so when we were done with that, we went down to the computer lab, and I showed them the website for Stellarium so they could get it at home. It's Open Source, by the way. Then we used the screenshots so they could see some of what Stellarium does, and I could tell them a bit about the controls. At the very end of the class, I had them all fill out a short survey about the camp, what they liked, what they would like to see in the future, that sort of thing. I haven't looked at the surveys, yet, partly because I was at Uprising, and partly because I want to have some space before I look at them. Since I kept this blog, I'm not too worried about forgetting things by the time I look at the survey. Except maybe which kid was which. I asked them NOT to put their names on the surveys, but I really don't want to know who said what.

Immediately upon finishing the class, I hurried home, put the telescopes away, and my husband and I headed off for Uprising. We got there just in time for dinner, missed court because we were setting up camp (it's very important to set up camp before dark), but I still had a couple of hours before it got dark enough for my class. It was intended for anyone, but got announced as a kid's activity, so most of the people there were kids, with a few parents along for the ride. The temperature was nice, we lasted about an hour before people started wanting to get back to campfires, myself included. There was one kid who kept interrupting, wanting to ask questions or add stuff about something I planned to talk about after first introducing a few basic concepts, to help people understand the later stuff better. It's cool when kids are so interested in things, but kind of frustrating when you know other people will be totally lost if you let things skip around too much. Oh well. The class went well overall, and I even had people all the rest of the weekend telling me they had wanted to come but either couldn't find us or thought it was just for kids. I guess I'll just have to volunteer to teach it again next year.

The best success of the last week, though has been that I've got another opportunity to teach. Girl's Camp, for the teenage girls at church, is next week, and the leader has asked me to come up and give an astronomy class for them. We're planning on Tuesday for that, weather permitting. I'll post here afterward about how that goes.

Sun, Rain, & More Sun

Today, the main activity I had planned was making sextants & trying them out. It looked like it was going to be a nice day, but 5 minutes after we went outside, it started raining. So we went back in & made sundials. By then it had stopped raining, so we went back outside, this time to the football field. And it started raining again. By the time most of the kids had all four of the measurements I wanted them to take, someone from the school came out to say we needed to stay off the field and track while they are wet. So we went as far as the asphalt, let the last few kids take their last measurement, then went back inside.

Michelle Larson, an adjunct professor from the USU Physics Department came and spoke for about half an hour about how she became an astronomer. She shared some images from the Yohkoh Public Outreach Project which she worked on. She brought a sunspots in visible light and X-rays matching game, which each student was able to take home with them, and a Solar Storm puzzle.

After Michelle left, we still had 45 minutes, and everything I had planned was already done, including the "extra, just in case things take less time than expected" sundials. So I gave everybody a blank sheet of paper, & used the overhead projector to explain, briefly, how telescopes work, & the three main types of telescopes. I drew, & had the kids copy, a diagram of a refractor telescope, a reflector telescope, and a catadioptic telescope. I passed my binoculars around as an example of a pair of small refractors, and showed them some of my sketches of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, & Saturn that I had made using my 8" Dob.

I am going to get paid for teaching this summer camp. I found out today that I need to turn in an invoice to the Logan City School District for it. So after I got home today, I made that up. I also made a survey for the kids to fill out at the end of the day tomorrow. Getting paid for doing what you love is awesome.

USU's New 'Scope

Tonight was the monthly Cache Valley Stargazers meeting. We changed locations from Old Main to the Physics Building so we could have access to the new telescope that arrived on Tuesday. But first we had our regularly scheduled meeting, with Michelle Larson speaking on Solar Observing. She had diagrams of how to make a pinhole camera, a picture of one made using an oatmeal container, how to make a sundial, & how to make a solar filter for $15. Shane promised to put her slides on the Stargazers website, so as soon as those are up, I'll link to it.

Now for the new 'scope. The freight elevator to get on the roof requires a key, so people can't just go up there whenever - someone from the USU Physics Department has to be with you. There were 23 of us who went up, & the scope is awesome! It's a 20-inch, Planewave Corrected Dall-Kirkham 'scope, with a parabolic primary mirror, a spherical secondary mirror, & a couple of lenses to correct the aberrations from the spherical mirror. We looked at the Orion Nebula, & most people went home after one look (it is -5°F after all). A few of us, including the 10 year old, stuck around for several looks, & then we aimed the 'scope at Mars. Couldn't see a whole lot of detail on either the Orion Nebula or Mars, but that was due to the H₂O Nebula (or the haze in our atmosphere) :-). Mars looked bigger than I had ever seen it, by at least twice. I can't wait 'til I get an opportunity to use the new 'scope on a night without any haze.

In March, there will be an event where the new telescope is open to the public. This will be a joint event between the USU Physics Department and the StarHouse Discovery Center. More details on that will be posted as we get closer to March. Meanwhile, check out the article in Wednesday's Herald Journal about the new 'scope.