KAON session
On Saturday March 9th, 2013 we held another Kingston Astronomy Outreach Network Open House and Observing session at the Queen’s University Observatory on Ellis Hall.
The talk was on “Heavenly Errors: Misconceptions About The Universe”
by
Dr. Terry Bridges (Queen’s University)
The talk went from approx 19:35 EST to 20:30 EST in Ellis Hall Room 324
About 155 people were in attendance, with a packed room for the talk with many others joining us out on the observing deck.
Kim and I were out on the deck with the 20cm Fitzgerald telescope, a dobsonian mount f7 fl=1385mm (56″) reflector built by the club in 1997. Coming up on 20 years old!
It was a busy night but luckily another person showed up with a scope (thanks Rick!) and we were able to handle the cub-scout rugrats, amongst many others.
Targets of the night were basically just Jupiter and its moons (Io, Jupiter, then Europa, Ganymede and Callisto).
There was cloud and haze, a lot of cloud at times.
It was so busy that we went well past the designated stop time of 21:00, even a little past 10pm.
Because of the large crowds and only the one operational deck scope, we are thinking of staging a 2nd dobsonian scope there, the 20cm (8″) f4.5 fl=1400mm (36″) Barney Dobsonian telescope built in 1999. The less equipment one has to lug up to the top floor, the better!
The observatory folks are also attempting to find funds for another operational scope for the deck…