Rain Drives Outdoor Outreach Indoors - Successfully!

[Skylook123]

Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association has been supporting the Rattlesnake Ridge Elementary School's science night events for about four years now, sometimes with an indoor hands-on demonstration setup and always with around five or so telescopes outside on the basketball court. This is a big event for the school, with many outside groups participating with cafeteria and library setups.

With the weather forecast to be grim from Thursday through Sunday, on Wednesday the decision was made to cancel the telescopes. In our wonderful corner of the world, weather is hardly ever a problem!  Since we hadn't been asked for an indoor demo setup this year, I offered to set up a show and tell about how telescopes work, and use my Mallincam PRO live video on a 90mm refractor to show a planet. Bill Lofquist said he would show up as well, so we were on for an indoor astronomy adventure.

I took a presentation I do at the Grand Canyon on how telescopes work and converted the main slides to a poster (way too busy), and set up at one corner of the cafeteria. I hung a picture up high on the opposite side of the room of a planet to show in the monitor. Well, actually, it was Walt Disney's Pluto. Then Bob Wilson showed up with astronomy observing accessories, and Don Cain did as well plus his large binoculars. And Bill brought in his 6" dob, so we had quite a corner for astro discussion and demos. I added my big laptop running a 10 minute Solar System introduction and exploration video on a loop, and it was game on for our impromptu outreach.

We all had a continuous flow of visitors. Lots of great contact. Don and Bob did great with the binoculars, Lunar and Mars maps, and planisphere demonstrations, Bill talked folks through features and use of his small telescope, and I had Pluto filling the 13" screen, with the visitors fascinated at what we could do with it.  It was as popular as the live snake!   We later found out from Sarah Pierce, the organizing teacher, that there were officially counted 692 visitors, but more came through an alternate cafeteria door so lets say, well in excess of 700 parents and children were present, including the school's Astronomy Club that Bob, Don, and BIll helped start this year and are working with. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade! A great outcome due to our quick reaction and everyone's creativity on a spur of the moment opportunity.  And the Junior PRO was awesome with the cartoon image of Pluto.  Must have had great polar alignment, because the grinning dog/planet from across the cafeteria never left the monitor.

[Skylook123]

By the way, here is our indoor planet we viewed in live video: