Stargazing Live 2012: Flag Fen

[psjshep]

Hiya Ant - Soz for not being by my Newt - I got dragged away ..... managed to get about 30 s on the Beeb.... (just seen it) which was unplanned... our "public star speaker" hadn't arrive & I had to find out about Vega!

were we surprised by the numbers? YES!

We had a good turn out by our members (P.A.S.) who got a great reception from the people... All seem to have had a great time.... I don't think it would have mattered if EVERYONE had brought a scope, we would still have had queues.

They will be a Sunday event (all day + part of the evening) next, but Flag Fen are charging their usual entry for that as the Beeb aren't subsidising.

Thanks to anyone who showed up & I'm sorry we couldn't get enough equipment out! (although we ended up taking 3 of the display ones out the back...)

Phil

[Ant]

No worries Phil, I was talking to another guy from PAS and he asked me if I thought more scopes would have got rid of the queues - and to be honest I think if you had 30 scopes out you'd still have queues.

Great night - well done to PAS.

Ant

[jcm]

Thanks for the positive comments.

I was absolutely shattered by the end of the evening.

After giving 3 talks ( similar one each time) , dealing with questions about the talks ( 3 people asked me if I could tell them how to work their own cameras ?? ) and answering questions about my scope and the nature of the planet Jupiter etc etc - I did not notice the cold at all - must have been in a dream state

They estimated about 1200+ attendance

This is my first post for ages on this site - must drop in again soon.

JCM

( Chairman Peterborough Astronomical Society)

[psjshep]

I was in a bit of limbo this morning - not sure if I should be happy or sad : the Evening Telegraph had the usual people complaining about the "poorly run" and being "Very disappointed".... yet I had a host of people at work & via email say that although the "organisers" had a lack of information on where things were, once they connected with the A.S. members, they had a great time... our web page did state that we had limited resources.... we are a v. small group < 35 members... we must have had about 25 of them helping out over the evening!

I suppose it's easy to criticise & complain... but hard to praise an event which was totally free & mostly staffed by people giving up their own time for nowt!

The last post I saw summed it up :

" they're damned if they do well and damned if they don't!!!!!"

It won't put me off

Phil

[Shibby]

I must admit, a map upon entry would have been good just so we could have known what was there. I happened to see what looked like torches so wandered towards them to find hundreds of people!

But this is a brand new event (hopefully will be annual) which was very popular and you guys were doing a great job, so a big congratulations is in order. If more scopes will help at all, I'll happily bring mine along next time!

[Ant]

I really enjoyed it and it was fantastic to see all the people queued up talking about the stars and planets.

One thing that I will say is I dread to think what would have happened if it had been cloudy....

I'll be going next year and have even offered my services (that should keep the numbers down nicely )

Cheers

Ant

[jcm]

If more scopes will help at all, I'll happily bring mine along next time!

The more scopes the better!

We hope to have a bit of a debrief after the second Stargazing night at Flag Fen this Sunday.

There are a few things we could have done better but the amazing numbers ( 1200 +) but a strain on the people trying to run the event.

I am looking forward to next years already.

John

[insomnia]

I was there from 6pm til about 8pm. By god it was heaving. Was hoping to chat to someone from PAS about joining, but could see that that they were in high demand. I might pop back on Sunday. looked a very successful night. My wife even saw me on the BBC Look East live broadcast. :-)

[psjshep]

yeh, pop on down... shame Vivacity are charging their normal entrance fee... if you don't want to pay a fiver just to chat to us, come along to our next meeting (pas-stargazer.co.uk) otherwise we might see you there.

Phil

[jcm]

I was there from 6pm til about 8pm. By god it was heaving. Was hoping to chat to someone from PAS about joining, but could see that that they were in high demand. I might pop back on Sunday. looked a very successful night. My wife even saw me on the BBC Look East live broadcast. :-)

The leaflets that we printed were snapped up in the first 30mins !!

As Phil said , you can get info from the PAS web site.

John