Sharing the universe

[RobertI]

Came home from a day out and, contrary to the forecast, it was beautifully clear with the moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars all visible in the azure sky. I just had to share these delights with my son, so we dashed out with the 66mm frac on a tripod and had some nice views. Hopefully created some  nice memories for him. 🙂
 

[Kimboman]

Great picture takes me back in time.

I went out tonight earlier and also noticed it was reasonably clear so I used my Meade etx90  and had some fantastic views of the moon with a few glimpses of Mars.

Two local neighbours passed and they had a few views of the moon and they were blown away as they had never seen the moon through a telescope.

I then set up my Celestron6se and used a barlow lense once again they could not believe the detail available,all in all Iwas pleased to show them what is possible to see.

 

 

[Sunshine]

Keep minds open and the greatest hobby alive.

[theropod]

3 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Keep minds open and the greatest hobby alive.

Like golf astronomy can be prohibitively expensive for many (I am lucky enough to do both). I’d love to see schools given the bare bones needed so hat kids could build their own scopes, and their own barn door trackers. Many schools have golf teams and I see no reason they couldn’t have astronomy clubs.

I’ve never had big scope fever, and actually love the challenge small scopes represent. Imagine if Galileo had my C-90 Mak and a goto eq! Sparking a kids mind with a small inexpensive scope could give us another Sagan.

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, theropod said:

Like golf astronomy can be prohibitively expensive for many (I am lucky enough to do both). I’d love to see schools given the bare bones needed so hat kids could build their own scopes, and their own barn door trackers. Many schools have golf teams and I see no reason they couldn’t have astronomy clubs.

I’ve never had big scope fever, and actually love the challenge small scopes represent. Imagine if Galileo had my C-90 Mak and a goto eq! Sparking a kids mind with a small inexpensive scope could give us another Sagan.

Very well said!

[RobertI]

In my home town of Clacton-on-sea in the 70’s, the local astronomy club built their observatory, housing an 8.75” reflector, in the grounds of the secondary school. Local Cub and Brownie groups were often given tours of the heavens (including me) and the school itself was lucky enough to get to use it (supervised of course!). In fact I think that observatory was a big factor in starting me on my journey. The local club didn’t quite produce any Sagans, but at least three people I know of went on to study Astronomy and two went on to work in the field. Not bad really! I have often thought about starting a club in partnership with our local school, won’t happen for while now I guess.....

[maw lod qan]

Excellent! When I got back into this insanity I still had an old "CHEAP" general store retractor, probably 3"  that I had bought my daughters 25 years earlier.

It has the .975" eyepieces.

Cleaned it up and took it out, surprised at the views of the moon!

Later, got my youngest grandkids out too.

When I got my 8" reflector, they got real looks at Jupiter and Saturn.

There is few things that bring the joy you get from sharing the heaven above us.