Telescope Night... almost worked!

[Blackheart]

Hi all

Just thought I'd let you know how the 'Telescope Night' went up here in the Scottish Borders...

For a small village event we had a great turn out with over thirty people coming along. We had about twelve scopes on view plus a host of toy scopes that some of the kids had brought. The scopes covered all the main bases from small refractors, equatorial Newts, 6,8 & 12" dobs, plus a couple of small Maks and one computer controlled Schmidt, courtesy of Smudgeball (thanks Neil!).

The event was a little more chaotic than I had planned but I suppose I should have expected that. I had hoped to be able to spend time sorting out poeple's niggles but attending to one person would have left the rest milling around aimlessly. In the end I tried to give an overview of the different scopes and I hope people got a good idea of what is available.

We had clear skies and managed to see a few things. One young lad and his mum got to see the moon for the first time with their scope and that was cool. But then I had to tell another young boy that his 'toy' rafractor was essentialy broken. Another family finally got to see the moon through their 'science shop' reflector but the mount was so jerky that it was smoother to lift the leg of the tripod and shift it along the gravel. The image wouldn't focus properly either but they seemed happy to have seen something and then they got a view through a nice big dob, so hopefully they will have been inspired.

On the whole I left not quite knowing how it went; whether it met people's expectations or not. Smudgeball might be better placed to answer this...

Bye for now

BH

[Astro_Baby]

Well done you for organising it.....its quite a task.

[smudgeball]

Hi

Thanks for organising the evening Peter.

I really enjoyed it. (although you flattered me a bit too much......I'm very much a beginner at this ...perhaps "all the gear and some idea" )

The impromptue talk you gave was the best way to go.

It was strange that all the scopes pretty much ended up displayed in a good sequence around the room.

It was good getting to talk to some of the people there and I don't think you could have asked for a better evening for viewing.

All in all a success I think.

Hope you can do something similar again.

Perhaps without the talk, say based on a "bring your eyepiece evening" ??? (fewer scopes, but outside ?)

Getting to see the different equipment was the best part of the night (I've never seen a dob in real life !!)

You'll need to let me know when the next meeting is (although I'm on your mailing list)

And I think I need to invest in a case for my SCT !

Anyway, well done for the evening and it was nice to meet you.

Regards

Neil