Star party with cub scouts

[Schism]

Hello,

Curious if there are any resources here for hosting start parties for kids ages 6 to 10.

Will bring my 12" LX200 for some decent viewing.

Weather is to be clear and crisp for 2 nights during our camp out.

Thanks, and hope to gain some friends here!

[Nyctimene]

A lot of information on outreach is given in the CloudyNights forum:

https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/60-outreach/?prune_day=100&sort_by=Z-A&sort_key=last_post&t

There was a thread here on SGL some time ago:

Hope this helps - and a warm welcome to the forum!

Stephan

[ronin]

Will say that at outreach I have found that a dobsonian is not great, they are generally not something that a complete novice can aim at a point in the sky and see something. There is a learning curve with a dobsonian, and a 5 or 10 minutes introduction to one is insufficent.

A small goto will be easy fo them to see things with, you need tracking more then anything to just keep whatever object selected in the field of view.

 

[rockystar]

I've also discovered that, as much as I enjoy star hopping,  it isn't a spectator sport. 

[Buzzard75]

14 hours ago, rockystar said:

I've also discovered that, as much as I enjoy star hopping,  it isn't a spectator sport. 

Right?

Here's how it usually goes with my 6-year-old daughter:
Go play for a little while, I need to put it all together first. Yes, I know you're excited. Just be patient, sweety. (Twenty minutes later) Now I need to collimate my mirrors. Hold on, I need a few more stars to come out so I can do my alignment. (Ten minutes later) Okay, let me find something interesting to look at. Honey, the North Star isn't very interesting. No, that's still below the horizon and not out right now. No, Pluto is too small to see or to even be able to tell what you're looking at. (Five minutes later) Okay, I've got Jupiter/Saturn/Whatever, I just need to get it centered and swap out my eyepiece so you can see it better. Hang on, let me get it focused for you. (A few minutes later) There, go ahead and take a look. What do you mean you can't see it? It was right there. Let me see. It must have been bumped. Don't touch the telescope. Hold on, let me find it again. (Five minutes later). There, sweetheart. Hey, where'd you go? At this point all interest is lost and she's run off.

It certainly isn't very exciting standing around and waiting for someone to find something and it is very much not a spectator sport. It's even worse when children are involved as they have even less patience. My recommendation is to make sure that everything is setup as far in advance as possible. There's a bit more setup involved with a GoTo and the alignment, but when you're dealing with children it takes a lot of the time out of actually locating an object and makes it easier for multiple people to look without having to realign it everytime. As long as NO ONE TOUCHES THE SCOPE!!! I'd also recommend you have as many people with scopes as possible. While you're working on finding or realigning, they can be off looking through someone elses scope. If you only have one, it's going to get boring really quickly for all those kids. Find out if there's a club nearby that would be interested in helping out with that portion of your campout.

[Luna-tic]

Our club does Scout troop outreach, it's fun. It's also akin to herding cats.

On ‎10‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 12:20, Schism said:

Hello,

Curious if there are any resources here for hosting start parties for kids ages 6 to 10.

Will bring my 12" LX200 for some decent viewing.

Weather is to be clear and crisp for 2 nights during our camp out.

Thanks, and hope to gain some friends here!

First  to address is attention span. Keep explanations as simple as possible. You can explain a light-year at an understandable level for that age kid, but don't talk in parsecs, or arc-seconds, etc. A primer of telescope types is good, as long as you leave focal ratio out of it; takes too much math to explain quickly. Just basically, the longer it is, the higher the magnification (and then they get confused because a SCT with a 2000mm F/L is shorter than a Newt with the same F/L). Oh, magnification is a big thing with kids. Teaching a group is more difficult than one-on-one; kids are jostling each other, talking when they should be listening, and generally being normal 6-10 year-olds. We usually drag out three telescopes; a 10" f/5 Dob, a 5" f/5 refractor, and a C14 SCT, just to illustrate the different types and show comparative views. We never leave them unattended, always a club member with each scope. On a really nice night, we'll open up the dome and use our 10" f/9.2 Newt on its horseshoe EQ mount. The kids love this, they're at the Hale Observatory in their mind.

Show them simple, visible objects. Saturn has a WOW factor off the scale for a 10-year-old, but Andromeda, as fantastic as it may be, doesn't do much because even at its best is a fuzzy blob. You might get some mileage out of the Ring Nebula.  Double stars are cool, especially Eta Lyrae (Double-Double) and Alberio. Show them that the North Star is actually a double, and Mizar/Alcor can be fun, because those young eyes can probably split them naked eye. The Double Cluster is nice to see, as is Pleiades, as lots of stars in a small place is fun to look at.

Be cautious with your equipment. At that age, they have little concept of the fragility or value; you do the aiming, but you can show them how to achieve focus once the object is located. A short talk about observing etiquette before going to the telescope is in order. Scout leaders should be in on this as well, to help keep an eye out and enforce it (see "herding cats" above). One of the things I've noticed and it's directly proportional to the age, is the obedience to rules. Tell a kid not to stand in front of the scope so as not to block the view of the observer, that's exactly what they will do. Tell them not to reach in the open end of a Newtonian, the first thing you see when you turn around is an arm up to the elbow down the tube. "Don't push the observer in the back of the head while he's observing", you say, and next thing you know a kid has a ring-shaped black eye from  the kid behind him, and you're jumping to catch your telescope. And put your dew shield on that SCT, or you'll have fingerprints all over your corrector.

If you have some simple handouts with pictures, the kids (and leaders) will love it. Don't get me wrong about all I said above. I love teaching kids about my own passion, and the look on their faces when they see cool things in the EP, and the comments they make, is priceless. Have fun.