Epic spur-of-the-moment observing / outreach session

[Paz]

I went with my son to Beaver Scouts this evening as they were going on a night walk. We took warm clothes and torches. When we got there, I waited whilst they got ready and I discovered it wasn't just a night walk, they were learning how to recognise the Big Dipper and were going to go outside to find it!

We all went outside into the middle of a dark field, and what followed was 5 minutes of lots of boys charging around with their torches on shouting things like “I’ve found it!”, “there it is!”, and “Oh yeah!” whilst pointing at every different constellation and asterism in the sky except for the actual target ! In the middle of this chaos, I was standing there looking at the Plough and gradually realised that the grown-ups didn't know where to look or how to find it either! In the end I quietly told my son to look north (what's wrong with a bit of nepotism?) and he spotted it. The word got around, and the boys were all jumping up and down shouting with excitement!

I was chatting with one of the grown-ups next to me, and mentioned how far away those stars were. They then asked me “do you know about the stars?”, to which I said “a bit”. They said “would you mind telling the boys something about them?”. I said “err, ok”. The next thing I know, there's a big voice shouting “Right! Be Quiet! This man is going to tell us something about the stars!”.

It then went quiet. I had my big Maglite torch with me for the anticipated night walk, and I shone it up into the sky like a laser pointer as I explained...

“... You see those stars in the Big Dipper? There are mostly about 80 light years away. They're part of a group of stars that formed together and are moving together through space...”.

“Ooooh!” “Wow!”

I swung my torch across the sky...

“... There is Cassiopeia, it's in the disk of the Milky Way galaxy, have you heard of the Milky Way? There are lots of star clusters there but you can't really see them without a telescope.”

“Cooor!”

“... Do you see that big square? That is the great square of Pegasus.”

“Wow!” “Aaaaaah!”.

I swung the light beam along Andromeda and stopped at M31.

“You can't see it but right there is the Andromeda Galaxy  two and a half  million light years away. Billions of years from now it will merge with our our galaxy”.

This elicited a worried look from one of the grown-ups, but the boys were too rowdy and excited to think about it.

“... There is Perseus, and there is Mirfak which is part of a nearby star cluster. Can you see it?”.

“Oh yes!”, “Awesome!”, “Waaaay!”.

Someone asked, “Where is the pole star?”.

I traced my torch beam along the Plough to the last two stars and showed how they pointed straight to Polaris. “... Polaris is actually a much brighter star than the stars in the Big Dipper, but it's over 400 light years away so it doesn’t look any brighter”.

“Wow, that’s amazing!”.

It was now time to go back inside. We had not done any of the night walk that had been planned due to the spur of the moment extended stargazing session.

If anyone had asked me in advance if I would do anything like that, I would have said no thanks, not being particularly confident, but this may go down as one of the most inspiring and epic stargazing sessions that I have done, even though it involved only a few simple targets, no binoculars or telescopes, and was under heavily light polluted skies whilst surrounded by a rowdy bunch of boys making a lot of noise and shining torches in each other's faces!

I hope it is something some of them will remember, I definitely won't forget it any time soon.

Thanks for reading.

[andrew63]

Who knows what events like these set in motion in children's lives.

 

andrew

[Roy Challen]

Sounds like it was fun!

[niallk]

Great stuff Paz! 

[mapstar]

Those spur of the moment adhoc sessions can be very rewarding.

Quite a few times I have been setting up and after quite a bit of head scratching from onlookers the curiosity gets the better of them and over they come with the usual "what it is"? And "What will you be looking at" so ensues an explanation of the night sky. 

I'm not a great orator but don't shy away from the chance to educate someone about the skies if they show interest.

Like you it normally happens on the spur of the moment. Only problem is you know who they will call when the next constellation spotting session comes up 

 

[cotterless45]

" not a great orator " , slight understatement there ! I remember being inspired and enthralled as you sat in our tent at PSP and spoke non stop of stars, most of which I'd never heard of. Started off a lot of searches and the need to pass on interesting info,

old Nick.

[rockystar]

I think when you are enthusiastic and  passionate about something you can't wait to share your knowledge and experience to a captive audience.

nice work Paz. I'm the same as you, probably wouldn't say yes if asked formally, but I love talking about talking about the night sky when asked.

[Paz]

9 hours ago, rockystar said:

I think when you are enthusiastic and  passionate about something you can't wait to share your knowledge and experience to a captive audience.

nice work Paz. I'm the same as you, probably wouldn't say yes if asked formally, but I love talking about talking about the night sky when asked.

This is something I realise on reflection, it was mostly all about enthusiasm and very little to do with knowing very much. It was much more enjoyable and less stressful than I would have expected beforehand.

[alan potts]

Lovely report, I was in the Cubs and the Scouts years back, I think they really help developement when young but even almost 50 years ago I sometimes got picked on by the brain dead.

Alan

[estwing]

On ‎18‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 08:52, cotterless45 said:

" not a great orator " , slight understatement there ! I remember being inspired and enthralled as you sat in our tent at PSP and spoke non stop of stars, most of which I'd never heard of. Started off a lot of searches and the need to pass on interesting info,

old Nick.

he knows more stars than a Hollywood agent.....

[faulksy]

nice one chris, can you imagine there faces when you take the vx 14 next time

[Paz]

2 hours ago, faulksy said:

nice one chris, can you imagine there faces when you take the vx 14 next time

I think those boys might mistake the vx14 for a human cannonball launcher and try to climb into it!