KAON Saturday 2014 March 08
Greetings partially clear skies!
For the first time in 5 or 6 months (2013 September?) The skies were clear enough to set up on the observing deck!
The Kingston Astronomy Outreach Network (KAON) open house at the Queen’s University Ellis Hall Observatory opened up at 7:30pm EST with a talk from Mr. Nathan Deg (Queen’s University)
on Why We Think Dark Matter Exists .
Kim & I set up on the deck (a little bit of snow cover) with the 20cm Fitzgerald dobsonian and observed with maybe 25 people before the other 50 that attended the talk showed up after 8pm.
Susan and Paul were also in attendance and with Nathalie up in the Queens dome, we set a lot of time observing the moon (with the moon filter), Jupiter, M42 and more with a lot of people who stuck around. We did not shut down until 9:15 or 9:30 (late!) because of all of the people sticking around.
Jupiter had all 4 moons off to one side (Io closest in, then Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) and the moon was at 1st quarter. Cloud bands were visible on Jupiter even with a lot of light cloud haze, light pollution, Grant Hall lit up with red spotlights for the Arts & Science Formal dance, and a lot of moonlight illuminating the cloud.
We set up a table by the elevator with free handouts of: business cards, moon guides, starfinders, trading cards, light pollution cards, brochures and a bag of red flashlight material covers and elastic bands.
We came home with very little.
That’s about it. 75 people was a great turnout for a not too cold day (maybe -2 to -4) with a slight wind.
Once the 20cm Barney telescope new base is completed we can approach Nathalie to see about storing the 2nd scope there onsite. With only one scope to start it was a little busy, then Susan arrived with hers and that helped a lot.