Family Night Under The Stars

[Skylook123]

First, as a way of introduction, I have been doing public outreach for almost 15 years. It gives me the most enjoyment I receive in this wonderous adventure. My astronomy club of almost 400 members is very active in public outreach, with about 50 of us doing over a dozen events most months. I participate in at least half. A vast majority are at schools, but an occasional municipal park, or scout unit, or even our local University of Arizona will hold specific events that we support. For the last three years, I've been privileged to be the coordinator of the Grand Canyon Star Party, where 70 or more astronomers from around North America spend 8 nights bringing night environmental awareness to the Park visitors. Three years ago, with perfect weather for the whole event, we had 77,000 visitor contacts for the week.

Every time out with one of my telescopes for a public event, I try to write an observing report. I have certain memory problems where it is difficult for me to remember prior happenings, so these serve to help me relive some of the best experiences one can have, opening the night skies to new eyes. Please enjoy!

April 30, 2011 - Marana Family Night Under The Stars

Location: Ora Mae Harn Park, Marana, Arizona, about 10 miles from home

Weather: Mid 80s at sunset, low 50s when we quit around 10:15 PM. Zero cloud cover, no appreciable wind

Seeing and Transparency: Both kind of rough, considering the high winds and resulting dust kicked up the last few days

Equipment:

Lunt LS60THa/B600 solar telescope

10" f/10 2540mm Meade SCT

Both instruments on an Atlas EQ-G GEM

Family Night Under The Stars is an annual weekend event sponsored by the Marana Parks and Recreation Department. At $5 per person, families are offered the opportunity to set up a tent on the grounds of the Ora Mae Harn Park, about four miles north of the I-10 Tangerine exit, for a Saturday afternoon, evening, and Sunday morning of activities including Crafts, Story Telling, Campfire, Outdoor Movie, Park Games, and a Best Decorated Campsite Contest. Food vendors are also located at the park. TAAA provides volunteers with telescopes for public outreach on Saturday evening. This was at least my third time supporting the event, and it is always a tremendous family entertainment and education opportunity. With so many associated activities, there is never more than about 10 or so people at each scope at any time, usually less.

Although we are only asked to provide telescopes after sunset, I wanted a chance to exercise my new Lunt LS60THa solar telescope so I decided to show up early. When I mentioned this to Jon Wolberg, the other volunteer for this event, he was eager to do some white light solar with his 10" LX-200 telescope as well so we actually showed up a couple of hours early, around 5:30 PM. Our contact person, Jen Ward, had parking spots reserved for us so our unload and transport chore was a lot easier. And she provided some folding chairs and small stools for visitors to use. Many thanks to Jen!

The impulse to do solar as well as night observing was a big hit. Both scopes had constant visitors, three or four at a time, as the park games and other activities were going on. Both scopes showed a splattering of sunspot groups, and the h-alpha view showed a variety of phenomenology with sets of prominences and energetic surface zones. Lots of education done!

A pleasant surprise was a pair of recent TAAA additions from Green Valley who dropped in with binoculars. It was great to have them share the crowd and the experience with us.

As the sun went down, the temperature dropped like a stone. I had forgotten my layers of covering at home, but I had a heavy hunting vest with lots of pockets I use when solo observing, so I threw that on and it did OK with fighting off the cold, and the ladies from Green Valley were prepared, but poor Jon endured the rest of the night with a thin short sleeved shirt. It sure got colder than I was comfortable with!

Much of the crowd was unprepared for the temperature shift as well. After dark, many of the young people were wrapped in blankets as they came through.

As sunset came on, I spent a lot of time aligning the Atlas while Jon was off and running with Saturn. He was doing a great job with the planetary education while I was fighting a couple of equipment gremlins. First, somehow my collimation was well off from the last time out. For my mount, this severely degrades alignment accuracy. With the impingement of the tall parking lot lights twenty feet or so away to the west, and the intensely bright sports field lights about 1000 yards away to the east, it took some work to zero in on items. The marker stars in the constellations, though, were very prominent; even Bootes outline, when it got above 30 degrees, was entirely visible. But, since my GOTO pointing was a few degrees out due to the collimation issue, I went over to Mizar and did the vision test and multiple star lesson for the visitors. Lots of interest for about an hour or more. Then, on a whim, I went over to M13 and it was a great view. Collimation was good enou gh to use 105X, so I stayed with medium power on it and it worked out fine. When the crowd abated, I tried a few galaxies in Markharian's Chain, and The Sombrero, and even The Whirlpool, but just not enough dark to use them. When I bounced away from Mizar, and most of the visitors dribbling through had seen Saturn, Jon picked up on the double star thread and went down that path, and my primary battery gave up and left the scope way unaligned and without power. I always travel with a spare, so I reset the home position, swapped out batteries, and redid an alignment. The crowd was sparse since the park was in the middle of showing a Yogi Bear movie on the inflatable screen some distance from us. I went back to M13 for a while, and Saturn for a time. Even with the bad collimation I was able to nurse out Titan and two other moons, but by now Jon was back on Saturn and was doing great with it so I jumped over to Regulus, just for grins.

Around 10 PM our crowd had evaporated to one or two families. Both parents and kids had very good questions all along. It is so good to do these events without the crush of 20 or 30 customers in line, when much of our outreach is in the education. Jon and I were able to provide real quality time with all of our guests, often tag teaming like we'd written a script. Our last family spent around 10 minutes with great discussion and interchange. I got to close the night with one of my favorite "insight" examples when the daughter, about 10 years old, asked a good question about stars and stories. So, since I was on Regulus, I started with the story of Copernicus and his naming of Regulus, imagining that it was the primary star in the sky. He was looking for a name, and came up with Regulus to indicate its being the "king" of the stars. So, I asked her who was the king of the animals? She answered the lion. So I popped on the laser pointer, showed the mane and body of Leo, and, frankly, they were all dazzled. Then, when she saw Regulus in the eyepiece, with its blue companion and got the multiple star and star temperature stories, the prodding of the imagination was complete.

To regress a little, when I was on the Hercules cluster and talking about it likely being the core of an old galaxy and now a sort of retirment home for old stars, I had one very young boy look in the eyepiece and his eyes got as big as saucers at the sight. He didn't say much, but he and his young mom hung around listening to Jon and me talk, and I believe the Green Valley ladies gave him a binocular look around as well on an earlier stop by. Just before our final visitors, he and mom came by again. He was all bundled in a blanket, and I'm guessing maybe six years old, and mom said he wanted us to know he wants to be an astronomer when he grows up. He looked at us and kept nodding slowly, curled up in the blanket. So I told him that many things we know are new, and there will be many wonderful things for him to help us with.

What a great night! Again, many thanks to Marana Parks and Recreation for providing a tremendous public service.