It -DID- look bad. It did.
Clouds as far as the eye could see. Thunderstorms expected for later.
I managed earlier in the day Friday to talk the scoutmaster into coming up to McCormick Observatory, though, and Dr.Mike Gorman showed the kids the scope and talked to them at length. He then let them slew the scope, turn the dome & raise & lower the observer's chair. Then after a good bit of this they came in to the classroom and I started my seemingly endless "Richard Drumm The Astronomy Bum" spiel.
I showed them librations of the Moon. Then I showed them a star chart and gave each of them a star map to keep:
I talked about Astrology, and precession of the equinoxes & astrology's problems. I covered the scientific method and Occham's razor.
After a while the scoutmaster announced that it was still cloudy and that they'd have to come back another time to look through the scope. I'm sure the kids were disappointed at this but what can you do? I talked a good bit more, about types of telescopes and how the telescope was invented. I had just finished talking about how it's OK that Pluto is not a planet anymore when Mike announced that he had Saturn in the scope!
All the kids and adults got to see the planet! I passed around the meteorite and talked to everybody some more out in the museum room till they all left. A couple of random groups of people showed up and I explained to them the public night/group night schedule as I showed them the scope. They'll be back for the next public night at McCormick.
All in all a fabulous night! Victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat! W00T!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Patterns in Titan transits & shadow passes!
I don't know why, but I've always been fascinated by patterns. Titan's orbital period is approximately equal to 2 weeks + 2 days - 1 hour. So we have 3 patterns superimposed here:
- You can see the time of day for the events slowly march backwards in approximately one hour increments from 4:52 AM to 3:16 PM.
- You can see the lack of transit transition through "barely" a transit to full transit to perfect ringplane transit to full transit to "barely" transit to no transit.
- You can see the altitude at shadow pass start times decrease, then increase. I'm not sure why Mar 28 has 18*43' and not 21*, but I'm just going by what Starry Night Pro indicated. I tried to eliminate as a source of error how far advanced the shadow was when I stopped the software and read off the numbers. The time is when the whole shadow is first visible. I also made a point of recording the minutes of arc as well. Still the March event is lower in the sky than the April 13 event. I'm stumped. The only thing I can think of is the curvature of Saturn's surface is playing a role here.
This pattern is to be expected as the ecliptic is doing its usual "Summer = Sun high, planets low / Winter = Sun low, planets high" pattern. The April 13 event has the highest altitude we're going to see for Saturn this year.
- There's a 4th pattern that I didn't really allude to very much, except with the "Rings flipped" reference. The shadow of Titan starts off to the left of Titan, and thus trailing behind Titan (which is moving left to right in front of Saturn), then it transitions after passing behind the Sun to the state of having the shadow of Titan leading it. You can see that the Aug 2 event has the transit starting in daylight, but the shadow pass starts at 9:25 PM, after sunset. Thus we start with a "Transit first, shadow after" pattern, then go to "Shadow first, transit after" situation.
I didn't continue into 2010, there probably are more there, but the inexorable "time of day for the events marching backwards" pattern will put the transits in full daylight. Not much for photography...
Titan shadow pass start times:
----------------------------------------
Mar 28 - 4:52 AM - 18*43' alt - No transit.
Apr 13 - 3:40 AM - 19*1' alt
Apr 29 - 2:45 AM - 18*17' alt
May 15 - 1:43 AM - 17*20' alt
May 31 - 12:46 AM - 16*1' alt
Jun 15 - 11:56 PM - 14*20' alt
Jul 01 - 11:04 PM - 12*38' alt - No transit.
Jul 17 - 10:12 PM - 11*6' alt - Titan barely transits, ends at sundown, 8:13PM.
Aug 02 - 9:24 PM - 8*55' alt - Transit starts during daylight, till 10:47PM (but sets at 10).
Aug 18 - 8:37 PM - 6*38' alt - Nice transit, but is setting & close to the Sun.
Sep 03 - 7:52 PM - 4*1' alt - Lost in Sun. Rings exactly edge on. Titan centered on ring plane.
Sep 19 - 7:08 PM - 1*15' alt - Lost in Sun. Rings flipped. Shadow precedes Titan.
Oct 05 - 6:23 PM - 1*18' below horizon.
Oct 21 - 5:42 PM - 4*42' below horizon. Titan just barely transits at 10:23 PM.
Nov 06 - 5:01 PM - 8*8' below horizon. No transit.
Nov 22 - 4:24 PM - 12*25' below horizon. No transit.
Dec 08 - 3:49 PM - 17*13' below horizon. No transit.
Dec 24 - 3:20 PM - 23*11' below horizon. No transit.
-------------------------------------------------
I just love patterns and astronomy is chockablock with them!
- You can see the time of day for the events slowly march backwards in approximately one hour increments from 4:52 AM to 3:16 PM.
- You can see the lack of transit transition through "barely" a transit to full transit to perfect ringplane transit to full transit to "barely" transit to no transit.
- You can see the altitude at shadow pass start times decrease, then increase. I'm not sure why Mar 28 has 18*43' and not 21*, but I'm just going by what Starry Night Pro indicated. I tried to eliminate as a source of error how far advanced the shadow was when I stopped the software and read off the numbers. The time is when the whole shadow is first visible. I also made a point of recording the minutes of arc as well. Still the March event is lower in the sky than the April 13 event. I'm stumped. The only thing I can think of is the curvature of Saturn's surface is playing a role here.
This pattern is to be expected as the ecliptic is doing its usual "Summer = Sun high, planets low / Winter = Sun low, planets high" pattern. The April 13 event has the highest altitude we're going to see for Saturn this year.
- There's a 4th pattern that I didn't really allude to very much, except with the "Rings flipped" reference. The shadow of Titan starts off to the left of Titan, and thus trailing behind Titan (which is moving left to right in front of Saturn), then it transitions after passing behind the Sun to the state of having the shadow of Titan leading it. You can see that the Aug 2 event has the transit starting in daylight, but the shadow pass starts at 9:25 PM, after sunset. Thus we start with a "Transit first, shadow after" pattern, then go to "Shadow first, transit after" situation.
I didn't continue into 2010, there probably are more there, but the inexorable "time of day for the events marching backwards" pattern will put the transits in full daylight. Not much for photography...
Titan shadow pass start times:
----------------------------------------
Mar 28 - 4:52 AM - 18*43' alt - No transit.
Apr 13 - 3:40 AM - 19*1' alt
Apr 29 - 2:45 AM - 18*17' alt
May 15 - 1:43 AM - 17*20' alt
May 31 - 12:46 AM - 16*1' alt
Jun 15 - 11:56 PM - 14*20' alt
Jul 01 - 11:04 PM - 12*38' alt - No transit.
Jul 17 - 10:12 PM - 11*6' alt - Titan barely transits, ends at sundown, 8:13PM.
Aug 02 - 9:24 PM - 8*55' alt - Transit starts during daylight, till 10:47PM (but sets at 10).
Aug 18 - 8:37 PM - 6*38' alt - Nice transit, but is setting & close to the Sun.
Sep 03 - 7:52 PM - 4*1' alt - Lost in Sun. Rings exactly edge on. Titan centered on ring plane.
Sep 19 - 7:08 PM - 1*15' alt - Lost in Sun. Rings flipped. Shadow precedes Titan.
Oct 05 - 6:23 PM - 1*18' below horizon.
Oct 21 - 5:42 PM - 4*42' below horizon. Titan just barely transits at 10:23 PM.
Nov 06 - 5:01 PM - 8*8' below horizon. No transit.
Nov 22 - 4:24 PM - 12*25' below horizon. No transit.
Dec 08 - 3:49 PM - 17*13' below horizon. No transit.
Dec 24 - 3:20 PM - 23*11' below horizon. No transit.
-------------------------------------------------
I just love patterns and astronomy is chockablock with them!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The evolution of roads & asking for directions. Really.
I know it's been a long while between posts and I apologize for that. I initially wanted to keep the Halloween post up there for a while just because I think it's an important idea for amateur astronomers (pros too) to use the one night in the year where there'll be kids out and about ready to look through our telescopes.
Then I just got busy & lazy.
So no more excuses, here's something I came up with on my own a couple years ago while driving down Rt. 29 in my brother's Camaro. It's completely off-topic and not particularly astronomical, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
I had the girls in the back of the car sleeping (as kids are wont to do) so I had to amuse myself while driving. I was taking the girls to a week-long Girl Scout camp in Ferrum, so it was at least a 2 1/2 hour drive. This was just before I started listening to an iPod and the car's radio didn't work, so I had nothing but my thoughts to keep me company.
I kept my eyes on the road and noticed how I could tell that the road ahead was going to curve to the right even before I could see the road surface because I could see the lack of trees ahead and to the right. It was as if I was driving in a tube of treelessness and I could see the tube ahead even if I couldn't yet see the road itself.
I got to thinking about roads, and how smooth asphalt strips like I was on were a recent invention and mused at what a caveman would think of the road & car. I then wandered mentally into what must surely be a gedanken experiment.
I thought about the caveman era, with small villages of 20 or 30 people every 10 or 20 miles in a seemingly trackless expanse of forest. The men were the hunters and the women would go out gathering in the traditional hunter/gatherer society. It came to me that the women were probably the road (trail) builders of their era. They would journey to the same spot on the creek, the same fruit trees and berry patches and wear down a trail with their feet. The trails must've led outward, branching this way & that to the various destinations, the water, food, sources of raw materials for making cord & rope, clay for pottery, that sort of thing. Later on there would be garden sites near the village, but the trails still went onward to the source of water & raw materials.
I mused how the men would go out hunting and initially would follow one of the many trails the women made until at some point they'd veer off the trail and head into the forest to hunt. Then the men would be on their own, without the familiar landmarks that they had along the trail. Women, using the trail, would use the landmarks, a particular tree or rock outcropping to tell where they were, but the men would have to make a rather large map in their heads to orient themselves. They'd also have to be able to navigate by the Sun & the stars too. I was rather attracted to this explanation due to my astronomical background.
Then it occurred to me that a man who couldn't make such a mental map, or who couldn't otherwise navigate in the forest wouldn't be able to find his way back to the life-sustaining village and would likely become tiger chow. Thus I came to believe that this might be the origin of the male reticence regarding asking for directions while driving his car (as I was doing at that very moment).
A man back then who had to ask directions was a dead man.
And dead men leave no descendants.
I don't want to ask directions because I frakkin' evolved not to ask! I can find my own way with my maps, mental or otherwise, so I don't need to ask anybody for directions. I also don't even want to ask directions, it's almost a point of pride that I can find my own way without help. It's like a puzzle and I want to figure it out for myself. It's purely conjecture but it sure looks like evolution's at work and powerful forces are at play. Better not mess with Mother Nature, ya know!
It's a guy thing.
;-)
Then I just got busy & lazy.
So no more excuses, here's something I came up with on my own a couple years ago while driving down Rt. 29 in my brother's Camaro. It's completely off-topic and not particularly astronomical, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
I had the girls in the back of the car sleeping (as kids are wont to do) so I had to amuse myself while driving. I was taking the girls to a week-long Girl Scout camp in Ferrum, so it was at least a 2 1/2 hour drive. This was just before I started listening to an iPod and the car's radio didn't work, so I had nothing but my thoughts to keep me company.
I kept my eyes on the road and noticed how I could tell that the road ahead was going to curve to the right even before I could see the road surface because I could see the lack of trees ahead and to the right. It was as if I was driving in a tube of treelessness and I could see the tube ahead even if I couldn't yet see the road itself.
I got to thinking about roads, and how smooth asphalt strips like I was on were a recent invention and mused at what a caveman would think of the road & car. I then wandered mentally into what must surely be a gedanken experiment.
I thought about the caveman era, with small villages of 20 or 30 people every 10 or 20 miles in a seemingly trackless expanse of forest. The men were the hunters and the women would go out gathering in the traditional hunter/gatherer society. It came to me that the women were probably the road (trail) builders of their era. They would journey to the same spot on the creek, the same fruit trees and berry patches and wear down a trail with their feet. The trails must've led outward, branching this way & that to the various destinations, the water, food, sources of raw materials for making cord & rope, clay for pottery, that sort of thing. Later on there would be garden sites near the village, but the trails still went onward to the source of water & raw materials.
I mused how the men would go out hunting and initially would follow one of the many trails the women made until at some point they'd veer off the trail and head into the forest to hunt. Then the men would be on their own, without the familiar landmarks that they had along the trail. Women, using the trail, would use the landmarks, a particular tree or rock outcropping to tell where they were, but the men would have to make a rather large map in their heads to orient themselves. They'd also have to be able to navigate by the Sun & the stars too. I was rather attracted to this explanation due to my astronomical background.
Then it occurred to me that a man who couldn't make such a mental map, or who couldn't otherwise navigate in the forest wouldn't be able to find his way back to the life-sustaining village and would likely become tiger chow. Thus I came to believe that this might be the origin of the male reticence regarding asking for directions while driving his car (as I was doing at that very moment).
A man back then who had to ask directions was a dead man.
And dead men leave no descendants.
I don't want to ask directions because I frakkin' evolved not to ask! I can find my own way with my maps, mental or otherwise, so I don't need to ask anybody for directions. I also don't even want to ask directions, it's almost a point of pride that I can find my own way without help. It's like a puzzle and I want to figure it out for myself. It's purely conjecture but it sure looks like evolution's at work and powerful forces are at play. Better not mess with Mother Nature, ya know!
It's a guy thing.
;-)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Halloween outreach!
I have been wanting for some time to do an outreach program during Halloween and have posted about the idea on several internet sites. For years, however, I was stymied by having small kids who wanted to go trick-or-treating and I had to drive them around.
Then last year I picked the prime street corner of the biggest housing development to set up my scope in, It was the perfect spot, lots of kids & foot traffic, and a house on the corner had a large, level grassy yard with good access to the sky.
The lady of the house met me at the door with 2 growling dogs and said an emphatic "NO!" to my request to set up a scope in her yard on Halloween night. Go figure! As a result, I had to choose a different neighborhood and got one with little foot traffic. I did manage to show comet Holmes to a couple dozen people, though, so it wasn't a complete wash.
This year (2008) I was told that I had to stay home because the older daughter wanted to host a Halloween party/bonfire. I was a little disappointed, but managed to be philosophical about it all, considering my lack of a huge success the year before. Besides that, the bonfire parties we host are a ton of fun and not to be missed!
Then just a couple days before Halloween my wife informed me that there hadn't been enough planning and preparation for the bonfire party, and that the event was not going to happen. Also both daughters would be going to sleepovers that night, in the very same housing development I had targeted the year before for outreach. Thus I was free to try my hand yet again at Halloween outreach. Yay!
This time I vowed not to sequester myself in a remote neighborhood, but instead I set up on the street in the preferred, high-traffic neighborhood a few doors down from the "NO!" lady. I arrived early and got a prime parking spot and set up my scope right behind my truck. After a minute or so, somebody parked right behind me, so I rolled forward a few feet and had a nice space to put my scope.
I did a cursory compass-assisted alignment of the Atlas mount on my 10" reflector, which was an adequate alignment, saved me time and got me up & running quickly.
I had a large bowl of candy on a chair next to the scope and called out stuff like "I have candy and the planet Jupiter over here" as kids & families walked by on the street.
Altogether I showed Jupiter to about 100 people, of whom maybe 2 had looked through a telescope before.
I did get some white face paint on my favorite Nagler 22's rubber eyecup courtesy of Dracula:
but that's a small price to pay. I made sure to have a scrap of paper in my pocket with the names of the Jovian moons and did my "Europa has a sea of liquid water under 5 kilometers of ice" spiel over and over! I was in outreach heaven! If you like talking to kids about the wonders of the universe you should try it yourself next year!
Then last year I picked the prime street corner of the biggest housing development to set up my scope in, It was the perfect spot, lots of kids & foot traffic, and a house on the corner had a large, level grassy yard with good access to the sky.
The lady of the house met me at the door with 2 growling dogs and said an emphatic "NO!" to my request to set up a scope in her yard on Halloween night. Go figure! As a result, I had to choose a different neighborhood and got one with little foot traffic. I did manage to show comet Holmes to a couple dozen people, though, so it wasn't a complete wash.
This year (2008) I was told that I had to stay home because the older daughter wanted to host a Halloween party/bonfire. I was a little disappointed, but managed to be philosophical about it all, considering my lack of a huge success the year before. Besides that, the bonfire parties we host are a ton of fun and not to be missed!
Then just a couple days before Halloween my wife informed me that there hadn't been enough planning and preparation for the bonfire party, and that the event was not going to happen. Also both daughters would be going to sleepovers that night, in the very same housing development I had targeted the year before for outreach. Thus I was free to try my hand yet again at Halloween outreach. Yay!
This time I vowed not to sequester myself in a remote neighborhood, but instead I set up on the street in the preferred, high-traffic neighborhood a few doors down from the "NO!" lady. I arrived early and got a prime parking spot and set up my scope right behind my truck. After a minute or so, somebody parked right behind me, so I rolled forward a few feet and had a nice space to put my scope.
I did a cursory compass-assisted alignment of the Atlas mount on my 10" reflector, which was an adequate alignment, saved me time and got me up & running quickly.
I had a large bowl of candy on a chair next to the scope and called out stuff like "I have candy and the planet Jupiter over here" as kids & families walked by on the street.
Altogether I showed Jupiter to about 100 people, of whom maybe 2 had looked through a telescope before.
I did get some white face paint on my favorite Nagler 22's rubber eyecup courtesy of Dracula:
but that's a small price to pay. I made sure to have a scrap of paper in my pocket with the names of the Jovian moons and did my "Europa has a sea of liquid water under 5 kilometers of ice" spiel over and over! I was in outreach heaven! If you like talking to kids about the wonders of the universe you should try it yourself next year!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Bear Mountain astronomy retreat!
It did clear up Saturday night, but it was 11PM by the time it was clear enough to start setting up my equipment for photography. There were clouds on the backside of the front that the CSC didn't predict. It was clear during dinner, though. We ate like kings and had a great meal!
Early on in the evening it was partly cloudy and we saw the Hubble Space Telescope pass by low in the Southern sky!
It took me till 11:42 to get the first image. I had to struggle to remember how to do time exposures with the Nikon after a whole year of inactivity (yikes!) because I discovered that I did not have my camera's manual with me.
After a time I did figure it out and got some nice images, though only with the camera mounted directly on the Atlas mount. It was very windy, so I couldn't mount the telescope and manually guide the camera with the guiding eyepiece like I wanted to do. I had to make do with the polar alignment I had (which turned out to be pretty good). This is my M31 image, which was unguided!
I did almost without exception 10 minute exposures at ISO 1600. I have worked on the images as much as I should. My technique needs refinement, but that's the fun of it! There's much more to do and learn, I wouldn't want to do it all right off the bat, then there'd be nothing more to do and I'd get bored. Nobody else did any photography at the retreat. Wes had his short tube refractor set up as it was somewhat immune to the wind. Ed didn't set up his large scope due to the wind. The winds continued all night and into the next day.
There was a good bit of work with Celestron Sky Scouts and a good time was had by all. Luke Langjoen played his guitar (with cold fingers) for a while, playing songs he wrote himself! Wes & I sat up for a good long while and watched Orionid meteors till I finished up with the photography. We must have seen at least 30 or so total. Then he & I went down the hill for a midnight snack (all the Fan Mtn doughnuts got eaten!) and sleep in the heated bunkhouse.
Paul & Carla Quenneville & I went to the NRAO Green Bank Open House on Sunday and ran the club CaK PST side-by-side with my Ha PST on my Atlas mount. Pretty snazzy! I didn't take a photo of the rig, though. Life is good (for me) when I do EPO with kids!
Those of you who didn't come missed a good one, even though there were some clouds earlier on in the evening. True, it was windy & cold, but we astronomers are a tough lot and we had dressed for the elements. The skies back home just don't compare with the skies over there, they literally pale by comparison!
Listened to George Hrab's Geologic podcasts all the way out there and all the way back. How frakkin cool is that? Very!
More later, especially after I process some images to post on Flickr and link to from here.
Rich
Early on in the evening it was partly cloudy and we saw the Hubble Space Telescope pass by low in the Southern sky!
It took me till 11:42 to get the first image. I had to struggle to remember how to do time exposures with the Nikon after a whole year of inactivity (yikes!) because I discovered that I did not have my camera's manual with me.
After a time I did figure it out and got some nice images, though only with the camera mounted directly on the Atlas mount. It was very windy, so I couldn't mount the telescope and manually guide the camera with the guiding eyepiece like I wanted to do. I had to make do with the polar alignment I had (which turned out to be pretty good). This is my M31 image, which was unguided!
I did almost without exception 10 minute exposures at ISO 1600. I have worked on the images as much as I should. My technique needs refinement, but that's the fun of it! There's much more to do and learn, I wouldn't want to do it all right off the bat, then there'd be nothing more to do and I'd get bored. Nobody else did any photography at the retreat. Wes had his short tube refractor set up as it was somewhat immune to the wind. Ed didn't set up his large scope due to the wind. The winds continued all night and into the next day.
There was a good bit of work with Celestron Sky Scouts and a good time was had by all. Luke Langjoen played his guitar (with cold fingers) for a while, playing songs he wrote himself! Wes & I sat up for a good long while and watched Orionid meteors till I finished up with the photography. We must have seen at least 30 or so total. Then he & I went down the hill for a midnight snack (all the Fan Mtn doughnuts got eaten!) and sleep in the heated bunkhouse.
Paul & Carla Quenneville & I went to the NRAO Green Bank Open House on Sunday and ran the club CaK PST side-by-side with my Ha PST on my Atlas mount. Pretty snazzy! I didn't take a photo of the rig, though. Life is good (for me) when I do EPO with kids!
Those of you who didn't come missed a good one, even though there were some clouds earlier on in the evening. True, it was windy & cold, but we astronomers are a tough lot and we had dressed for the elements. The skies back home just don't compare with the skies over there, they literally pale by comparison!
Listened to George Hrab's Geologic podcasts all the way out there and all the way back. How frakkin cool is that? Very!
More later, especially after I process some images to post on Flickr and link to from here.
Rich
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Think For Yourself!
Here's a cool song by George Hrab:
Like I say above, it's a manifesto for clear thought. That pretty much sums it all up! George Hrab is an incredibly talented musician whom you should all get to know. His "Geo logic" podcast is the best produced podcast out there, very enjoyable and worth the time to listen. I think I'll always chuckle at the "I like traffic lights" guy! I bought this song via iTunes, and I present it here via the Blip.com service. It's like Flickr for audio...
Even though linguistically it might be more correct to do so, I won't be calling it a creed, because that term relies on "belief" which isn't evidence based. As evidence is key to the scientific method, I'll stick with manifesto.
Thus even though saying "I believe I'll have another beer." seems correct, it probably isn't... :lol:
All you have to do is click where it says "Play" and enjoy!
Thanks for listening!
Rich
Like I say above, it's a manifesto for clear thought. That pretty much sums it all up! George Hrab is an incredibly talented musician whom you should all get to know. His "Geo logic" podcast is the best produced podcast out there, very enjoyable and worth the time to listen. I think I'll always chuckle at the "I like traffic lights" guy! I bought this song via iTunes, and I present it here via the Blip.com service. It's like Flickr for audio...
Even though linguistically it might be more correct to do so, I won't be calling it a creed, because that term relies on "belief" which isn't evidence based. As evidence is key to the scientific method, I'll stick with manifesto.
Thus even though saying "I believe I'll have another beer." seems correct, it probably isn't... :lol:
All you have to do is click where it says "Play" and enjoy!
Thanks for listening!
Rich
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Outreach at McCormick Observatory
Last night (Oct 10th, 2008) I operated the 26" Clark refractor at McCormick Observatory for a pair of groups. One was a group of school kids, and the other was Brownie Scouts. They all were 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders. There might have been a couple 5th graders there, I couldn't tell exactly. This is the sort of outreach I like best. There's nothing quite to compare with sitting at the eyepiece of a giant telescope like that and talking to kids about what they're seeing.
This picture is from a couple years ago. It shows how frakkin' large the Clark is!
I went through my spiel over and over again: "This is Jupiter, the largest planet we have in our solar system. You'll see 4 little dots of light in a row, 2 on the left and 2 on the right. One of the dots on the left is really close to the planet. The names from left to right are Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io. Io looks like a pizza when you're up close in a spacecraft because it has volcanoes that spew out sulfur and the moon is colored red & yellow from it. The red is like tomato sauce and the yellow is like cheese!"
Then while the kids were listening to a presentation by Dr. Wilson of UVa, I slewed the scope over to Uranus and said stuff like: "The light from Uranus has travelled for 2 1/2 hours to get here. So light left the sun, bounced off the atmosphere of Uranus, then travelled all the way here for that long a time, passed through the lenses of the telescope and went 'splat!' in your eye!"
I told them that in 4th grade they'll hear all about the planets from their teacher, Venus, Mars and all. When the teacher mentions Uranus you can raise your hand and say "I've seen Uranus up at McCormick Observatory in the giant telescope there. The light took 2 1/2 hours to get here from there!" Your teacher will be amazed!
These little bits of verbal blather always get the kids interested in what they're seeing and really make the evening something special. I'm a real EPO (Education & Public Outreach) junkie, I just can't get enough of it. That's what gets me up in the morning.
This picture is from a couple years ago. It shows how frakkin' large the Clark is!
I went through my spiel over and over again: "This is Jupiter, the largest planet we have in our solar system. You'll see 4 little dots of light in a row, 2 on the left and 2 on the right. One of the dots on the left is really close to the planet. The names from left to right are Ganymede, Callisto, Europa and Io. Io looks like a pizza when you're up close in a spacecraft because it has volcanoes that spew out sulfur and the moon is colored red & yellow from it. The red is like tomato sauce and the yellow is like cheese!"
Then while the kids were listening to a presentation by Dr. Wilson of UVa, I slewed the scope over to Uranus and said stuff like: "The light from Uranus has travelled for 2 1/2 hours to get here. So light left the sun, bounced off the atmosphere of Uranus, then travelled all the way here for that long a time, passed through the lenses of the telescope and went 'splat!' in your eye!"
I told them that in 4th grade they'll hear all about the planets from their teacher, Venus, Mars and all. When the teacher mentions Uranus you can raise your hand and say "I've seen Uranus up at McCormick Observatory in the giant telescope there. The light took 2 1/2 hours to get here from there!" Your teacher will be amazed!
These little bits of verbal blather always get the kids interested in what they're seeing and really make the evening something special. I'm a real EPO (Education & Public Outreach) junkie, I just can't get enough of it. That's what gets me up in the morning.
If you ever find yourselves in the Charlottesville, Virginia area on a Friday night, be sure to go up to McCormick Observatory to see the show. On the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month it's open to the general public (free of charge) and telescope viewing will happen if it's clear. On the 2nd & 4th Fridays we at CAS operate the scope and give the presentation for school groups, scout troops and such. Last night was an exception as Dr. Wilson had a daughter in the scout troop.
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