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Astronomy Day
2003 was held in conjunction with Free Admission Day at the Kalamazoo
Nature Center
on Saturday, June 21. The weather was a significant improvement
over last
year’s oppressive humidity. Conditions were relatively dry and
temperatures
ranged from the upper 70’s to lower 80’s and sunshine reigned supreme
the
entire day. Attendance was about 820, which is about half the
amount of people
we’ve had for the previous two years. The reason for this drop is
due to the
fact that the Nature Center
had no major sponsors to help promote and fund this year’s event.
Also, due to
the lack of sponsors, no free pizza or soft drinks were offered this
year. At first we were worried that this would spell
certain doom for Free Admission Day, but everyone involved felt the
event was
better than ever. Everyone that attended came because they wanted
to explore
the Nature Center’s
exhibits, trails, and special activities (like Astronomy Day) and not
because
of free pizza. In fact, due to the steady stream of people, we
actually stayed
for an extra hour!
All the hard
work started the night before as Richard
Bell, Jean DeMott, Jack Price, and Kerry Robbert met at the Nature
Center to begin setting up our main
structures. Kerry helped Jack setup his large canopy, which would
once again
serve as our hands-on area. Richard and
Jean setup the canopy for the greeting area. They also measured
and marked the
position of the planets for our scale model of the solar system.
It’s wonderful
being on our home turf! It makes our
jobs so much easier.
KAS members
began arriving at the Nature Center
as early as 9:00 am. Jean and Richard
started setting up the greeting area and table displays. Rich Mather
and Jack Price worked on setting up the solar system scale
display. Carol Morin and Bill Van Dien then started setting
up
the hands-on area. Gradually, more and more KAS member arrived for an
exciting
day of sharing our love of astronomy with others.
As with every
KAS Astronomy Day, one of our most popular attractions was solar
observing.
Richard shared views of sunspots with our Meade 12” Schmidt-Cassegrain
in Owl
Observatory and Mike Sinclair
once
again setup his trusty 8” LX10. Bill
Nigg then wowed visitors and members alike with razor-sharp
views of
sunspots and solar granulation through his 5” Astro-Physics refractor. Roger Williams also
setup his handmade
folded reflector and shared views the entire day. Perhaps, if our
current fund
raising project is successful, we’ll be able to acquire a
hydrogen-alpha telescope
and amaze people with views of solar flares and prominences (a.k.a.
“the
flames”).
The featured
hands-on activity this year was making a model of the ringed planet
Saturn out
of 2” Styrofoam balls and old CD-ROM’s. As usual, our hands-on activity
was a
big hit with the kids and parents, but it would not have been possible
without
KAS volunteer support. Carol Morin deserves a great deal of credit for
gathering most the necessary materials and working the hands-on tables
the
entire day. Beverly Byle, Rick Shields, and Bill Van Dien also
helped kids make models of Saturn the entire day. Angela Brooks arrived
in the early afternoon and was of great help
in the hands-on area as well. Once again, thank you to all that
sacrificed part
of their weekend to help make our hands-on activity a great success.
A big part of
past Astronomy Day events was the displays and this year was no
different. The
astrophotography display was once again a big hit even though we had
fewer
photos on display this year. Special thanks
to Richard Bell, Bill Nigg, and Roger Williams for allowing us to
display their
best work.
To celebrate the
close opposition of Mars in August, we had a display all about the red
planet
this year. The KAS purchased two Mars posters featuring incredible
images from
Mars Global Surveyor. Richard set up his
two panoramic Mars Pathfinder posters. One of them was in 3D and was
very
popular. Jean made a Mars Pathfinder diorama using the Hot Wheels toys
of the
lander and rover. We also had pictures of new Mars rovers due to touch
down in
January 2004 and several magazines featuring articles on the red
planet.
Another new display was on light pollution. The KAS purchased a light
pollution
poster for the display and Roger Williams brought his Hubbell Sky Cap,
an
excellent tool for taming stray light. We also had handed out
information on
proper lighting.
Where would Astronomy Day be without a night of
observing under the stars? A handful of KAS members came back out to
the Nature Center for our regularly scheduled public observing session.
This year we had Moon-free views of the summer night sky. Richard Bell
once
again manned the 12” LX200 in the Owl Observatory and Mike Sinclair set
up his
8” LX10 again. Kerry Robbert brought out his 16” truss-tube Dobsonian
and 6”
refractor. Astronomy Day officially came to an end at about 1:30 am in
the morning. It was another great event. Now we
need to start planning for Astronomy Day 2004. Any ideas?
Report
and photographs by Richard S. Bell
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