Getting them trained :)

[UnderTheRain]

There are about 50 people where I work and I'm the only astronomy fan but I felt a little bit of pride today as we were all leaving work one of the new starters said whats that star up there and one of my colleagues a non astronomer said that's not a star it's Venus and then he proceeded to point of Jupiter and Mars and how he spent last night looking up the sky online lol 1 converted 49 to go

UTR

[Marine Bio]

I think showing other people what is in the sky is one of the greatest (yet simplest) pleasures in this hobby. Just this evening I took my scope round to a friends house who had been interested. We had a good look at the moon, Jupiter and then a few messiers. He was so excited. He's now suggested another evening of viewing accompanied with a few beers. . . . Think I've found myself a new astro buddy

[gooseholla]

I agree that it can be cool to show others the night sky. However, I do prefer to be left alone when observing and hunting for deep sky objects. My neighbour came around tonight for 20 or so minutes and it meant I had to stop my recordings and chit chat.... ugggh.

[richbyers]

got my partner to look at the moon last night- was impressed and therefore so was i

[paul schofield]

Similar, I was telling a work colleague last night about The great view of the Moon, Venus and before I could finish he said yeah and Jupiter is there too. I was quite impressed as he claims no knowledge of the skies at all. So I asked if he knew when Saturn would be up, he said no ha, touché.

[squashnut72]

I was out the front of my house looking at the Moon, Venus, Jupiter and Orion when mt neighbour arrived home from the beer shop. We both got something we wanted out of half an hour or so of scope time.

[661-pete]

Reminds me of two occasions in the last few years. One was when I set up some kit in the works car park to project the 2004 transit of Venus. It provoked a lot of interest, virtually the entire workforce showed up during the course of the morning to take a look.

The other time was when I invited one of my neighbours around just to look at Saturn, on a night of reasonably good seeing. He, a middle-aged man, was as captivated and enthralled as a small child. He spent many minutes at the EP. He afterwards said he'd never seen a planet 'live' through a telescope before.

It's a pity that this early, spontaneous enthusiasm often palls. When folks realise, they're not going to see Hubble-quality splendour through a terrestrial eyepiece...