University of Arizona Introduction to Astronomy Students

[Skylook123]

This event happens about four times a year, usually led by Dr. Tom Fleming, but he is not teaching this year so this time, the students were very green to astronomy and their instructor, Serena Kim, set things up quite differently from Dr. Fleming. She had the students with definite record keeping to maintain regarding specifics about the object viewed and the telescope, and even a sketch of what the object looked like in the eyepiece. So, at the last minute, the eight or so of us had to each choose a different object to show. And she hadn't allowed for the nearly full moon to play in the game!

Dr. Fleming showed up to see how things were going, so although I had volunteered to do the constellation tour, this is usually his balliwick for the astro students so I asked if he'd mind doing his usual walk around the sky. I set up the 10" SCT in live video configuration initially on Venus, beautiful half disk, then as dark settled in while Dr. Fleming did his tour I aligned on Schedar in Cassiopeia and moved down to the Owl Cluster, NGC 457. I had the diagonal still installed in the visual back, so I left the focal ratio at f/6.3. If I would have added the 0.5X Antares for more image reduction, there is not enough focuser travel and I didn't want to fuss with moving the camera to the visual back to shrink the image. Still, the Owl was 3/4 covered in the monitor, and served the teaching purpose of introducing the students to open clusters (Big Dipper was setting, so the full Ursa Major Moving Group was not available as a teaching cluster) and we covered the nature of open clusters, the age of The Owl (22 million years), and the very bright image of the stars (medium brightness on the monitor, and turning off the ALC shutter speed and turning on the integration to one second) despite being 9,000 light years of distance. The massive size of the "eyes" of the owl shows physically the huge size of the monster stars, which will go supernova somewhere around 100 million years from now.

As the nearly full moon rose over the hills, I bit the bullet and took out the diagonal and moved the camera to the visual back and added the 0.5X Antares reducer and a Celestron lunar filter. After fussing with the refocus for a minute or two, dropping the monitor brightness and going back to 1/4000 second shutter speed on ALC, the moon was again a showpiece and we repeated the lessons available in the image, and the friendly figures on the face.

Another good night out, with the topper being Ms. Kim providing we volunteers each with Godiva chocolate packages. It ruined my blood sugar for the next two mornings, but was worth every calorie.

And my Mallincam Jr. PRO camera arrived on Monday. Along with clouds when I got some time off on Thursday to try it. Next session is in two nights for Catalina State Park; I've seen the PRO do wonderful images at about 30 seconds integration on The Ring and The Dumbbell, so I might try those or the gorgeous galaxy NGC 891. We'll see.

[ronin]

You appear to have a fairly active group there, from the assorted posts I read at regular intervals.

[Skylook123]

Quite true.  The Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association has nearly 400 members.  About 30 to 40 take part in our active outreach activities, about a dozen or so each month.  These consist of locations such as public and private schools of all ages, periodic support of activities at local and state parks, community associations, and retirement and assisted living locales.  In addition, we sponsor and coordinate the Grand Canyon Star Party South Rim segment, where about two dozen of our members combine with over 80 other volunteer astronomers from around the world for eight nights each June on the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, with as many as 70,000 visitor contacts day and night throughout the week.  The North Rim has a companion event at the same time, coordinated by Steve Dodder from the Saguaro Astronomy Club in Phoenix, Arizona.

We also have a special group of folks in our Starry Messenger Special Interest Group, which does the hands-on demonstrations that often accompany our telescope and binocular activities.  These dozen people include some of our telescope operators, and we do more indoor types of activities and demonstrations, mostly built around the many Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Night Sky Network demo kits..  Fantastic tools to demonstrate the physical behavior of the cosmos and the Earth within it.  If I don't have a telescope assignment, I like to work with several of those kits such as a black hole demonstrator, how stars are formed, and the life cycle of stars but we have about 30 different demos, and the sponsoring organization will let our Starry Messengers know what to bring for the demonstrations.

This year at the Grand Canyon, fortune aligned things such that not only did I acquire a live video capability for the first time, but I was able to coordinate three other individuals very experienced in video outreach from Flagstaff, Phoenix, and Prescott Arizona so we had our own video corner, with two or three of us set up with live video each night.  The response was tremendous.  I have to run the night talks indoors for an hour and a half at sundown, so my granddaughter and my wife traded off running the video setup until I could get to it.  In the first two hours after sundown, my wife had as many as four hundred visitors at her views of Saturn and the Moon.  Since that experience, my 18" Teeter truss dob has stayed packed away and all of my outreach has been live video with either a Lunt 60mm THa solar scope during the day, or a 10" SCT and/or 90mm refractor at night.  Now we can better serve the physically and visually handicapped, as well as the very young children who just can't get the hang of an eyepiece.

Whatever the vehicle or technology used, the core essential driving purpose is to open up environmental awareness of the night sky and the universe that is hidden from most visitors.  Our unofficial saying at GCSP is that "You never know what one life you will touch."  The joy and amazement on the faces of first time "lookers", as they transition to "seers", and occasionally graduate to "learners", is priceless.  I know many of my fellow club members that on special occasions will just drag their scopes out front of the house and share with passers-by. 

Solitary observing is a wonderful way to get personal contact with the sky and its wonders; thus my 18" primary scope and my personal quest for interacting galaxies.  I have no problem with people who desire the solitude and even the opportunity to image what they see.  After more than ten years of outreach with an uncountable number of other folks, it is not for everyone.  But it does bring to me a special feeling of giving a gift to a stranger who may, or may not, take the experience and benefit from it.  Ten years ago, I was about to quit astronomy as the faint fuzzies lost their draw for me, until the heavy load of outreach began. Now outreach is 90% or more of my activity in the avocation, six to ten times each month.  This year, as I have for the last eight years, I will set up in front of our house on Halloween and show off NGC457, The Owl Cluster.  In late October, with the diagonal positioned in just the right way, it is upside down and now I have annual return visitors who want to see The Bat one more time. 

You never know what one life you will touch.

[Mike73]

Jim

I take my hat off to you, giving others the chance to even just to get a glimpse of our hobby must be very rewarding for you and something that others will never in their lives forget.

Maybe open day I'II do the same but for the time being for some strange reason I find the solitude and peacefulness of standing in a field full of sheep poo on my own (while looking for faint fuzzes!) the way forward.

Thanks for the great report and once again well done sir.

[Skylook123]

Thank you, Mike!  Astronomy as usually practiced tends to be a solitary pursuit, and what ever brings one connection with the universe, a sense of joy or happiness, or even peace or a sense of accomplishment in one's personal quest, well, that is a good thing.  Many of us do share our knowledge and experiences with other astronomers, then run off to our solitude.  And that cannot be discounted as a purpose that draws most of us in; the quest to know, or even just see, something special to ourselves alone, even if thousands upon thousands of others have enjoyed the same experience.  It is ours, when we find it.

Communicating and sharing the connection to the universe with others, especially those who just never thought to look up, well, that's a good thing, too.  The phrase I used about touching a life was provided to me by one of our volunteers at GCSP about five or six years ago.  We were having a group discussion about scheduling the next year's week.  One faction wanted a week that would have the moon quite present for much of the week, but leave the after-midnight sky clear for the imagers after the visitors were gone.  The other side wanted a week in third quarter moon, not rising until after 11 PM, great for visitors but awful for the true deep-sky divers.  An individual who is a very quiet person, the best galaxy observer I have been privileged to share the sky with, who I have never been able to fool with my 18" on any obscure fuzzy where he will tell me the NGC number, more facts, and ask why I don't move over a few degrees to a more interesting object, told us a story.  When he was a high school student in the 1960s,he was an aimless youth.  Not much in the way of being a student, no goals in life, no real career in mind, but an interest in astronomy.  One weekend a local amateur astronomer invited the high school science students to a park to share the sky.  My friend Paul said that his first look in an eyepiece, he heard music in the sky.  Not only did he build his own 8" telescope and begin a forty year study of the sky, but the music he heard pushed him into being a concert pianist and music teacher.  He is a quiet, unassuming older gentleman (pictured below) but get him out with his 16" Newtonian on a GEM he built himself, and he becomes a teenager again.  He finished his story with the line I now use, You Never Know What One Life You Will Touch.  Needless to say, we picked the week of the third quarter moon.  That doesn't mean at all that solitary pursuit is not a worth pursuit in its own right.  No honest search for knowledge or study of our universe is unworthy.  But sharing the knowledge can be not only enjoyable, it can have far reaching impact as well.

[SteveNickolls]

Long may your great work continue.

Cheers,

Steve

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I love these reports! What a great way to share your passion for the skies

[Skylook123]

Love, the avatar, Michael!

Thanks for appreciating the efforts.  I have severe Attention Deficit Disorder, and just can't retain much in the way of memories so about twenty years or so ago I learned that the only way I can remember events is to write about them.  The sharing is somewhat gratifying, actually, experiencing the reactions of the visitors to the eye on the sky, but, for myself, anyway, it is a bit more important.  I share some of the feelings of Native American elders and "medicine men", in that they fear a loss of their culture, most of which is unwritten.  So my main mission is to excite an interest in the sky, since ours is pretty much the first generation of humanity that doesn't look to the sky as a natural search for answers to curiosity about life and its effect on us, and possible guide to the future.  We "know it all", or don't need to know it at all.  That's relatively new to humanity.  My goal is to bring back that cultural wonder.  While it might be rewarding to share the story of stellar evolution, it is even more rewarding to open minds to how other groups going back in time  have sought life knowledge in the sky.   Some of my visitors say it helps them ponder their own points of view, and decision making, when they hear how others have used the night sky as a life guide.  From all of the available examples we can convey, it is apparent that there is no single "right" way; just each individual's way and if the night sky can help one reach an understanding that helps guide a path, than it is a good thing.  And the eye candy is always a pretty avenue to explore and not get too wrapped up in philosophy.