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Astronomy Day
2004 was once again held at the Kalamazoo
Nature Center on
Saturday, June 19. In addition to their
annual Open House Day the KNC also held special rededication events to
celebrate the completion of its new renovations and additions.
The weather this year may have been the best ever. The
temperatures were in the upper 60’s to
lower 70’s. A few clouds were scattered
here and there, but nothing to get concerned about. There was
also a light to fairly strong
breeze at times, but that helped keep hungry insects away. Rich Mather, Jack Price, and I found out just how
bad the insects
could be the night before when we setup the rain flies for the hands-on
area
and greeting table. They were definitely
out for blood!
When I arrived at the Nature Center at 8:45 am Roger Williams was already setup for
solar observing. Our newest addition to Astronomy Day this
year was not one but two H-alpha equipped telescopes. Roger brought his
Coronado Max Scope 60 and his home-made trischiefspiegler (folded
reflector). Roger mounted his Max Scope
on an Orion Atlas German equatorial mount, which easily held the small
scope
steady!
I
brought my Tele Vue Pronto equipped with Coronado’s Solar Max 40
filter. After several years of people asking us where
the “flames” on the Sun were it was nice to finally show them.
Roger and I have both been H-alpha observing
for several months now, but not for 6 hours straight! The
prominences were very dynamic and changed
several times throughout the day. We
even believed we saw some solar flares!
Some of us came away with pretty good sunburns though.
We
still had white light solar filters setup, which did give better views
of
sunspots (especially the penumbra). Bob Havira setup his ETX-90EC the
majority of the
day. Bill Van Dien
brought his NexStar 114GT and Jack Price borrowed KAMSC’s LX10 (8” SCT).
The 12” LX200 SCT in Owl Observatory was also viewing the Sun the
entire
day. Dave Garten
showed off sunspots until he had to leave for work at 2:30 pm and then Frank Severance took over from
there. Thanks again to all our solar observers.
Carol Van Dien made
sure our hands-on activities were a big
success. We decided to repeat the Saturn
models again this year since our theme was the Cassini-Huygens mission
to
Saturn and its moons. Carol had enough
2” Styrofoam balls for over 80 kids to make and they were all gone by
the end
of the day. Thanks goodness we had
plenty of Saturn coloring sheets as backup!
And I was worried we wouldn’t have enough CD’s!
Our hands-on area wouldn’t have been possible without the appropriate
staff to keep things moving smoothly.
Special thanks to Beverly Byle,
Angela Brooks, John Miller, Rick Shields, and Norm Terry for
all their support and hard work.
Astronomy Day wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for the hands-on
activity. After all, children are our
target audience.
![[Saturn]](Images/AD2K4/saturn.jpg) Of
course, we had displays as well this year.
Dave Garten, Bill Nigg,
Roger Williams, and I supplied pictures and photo albums for our
Astrophotography display which is always a big hit. We also had a
display honoring the arrival of
the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, Titan, and the other
moons. My old Macintosh computer was running a slide
show featuring all the images taken by Cassini thus far; including the
images
of the moon Phoebe from the June 11th flyby.
We even had a couple of posters setup; one on the Sun and another on
the
recent Transit of Venus.
Sam Qualls ran the
greeting table the majority of the
day and did an excellent job. He was
quite diligent at handing out KAS info and inviting everyone to peak
through a
telescope, make a model of Saturn, or check out the displays.
The
main programming was supposed to end at 4:00 pm, but the crowds kept
coming for
over 30 minutes more. We finally had to
pack up and get some rest before the evening festivities.
Our regular public observing session began at 9:00 pm. This was
actually the first observing session
of the year. The first four sessions
were all clouded out! While we waited
for darkness to fall approximately 40 people enjoyed the special
presentation
of Ring World in the
amphitheater. Thanks to JPL for supplying the DVD.
Observing conditions were excellent and we even got to see Comet
NEAT. Visitors enjoyed a constellation
tour given by yours truly. Thanks to
everyone that setup a telescope to share the views. Too bad
Saturn wasn’t visible. It would have
been the perfect ending to a great day.
Report
and photographs by Richard S. Bell
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![[Astronomy Day 2004]](Images/AD2K4/astroday04.jpg)
![[Owl]](Images/AD2K4/owl.jpg)
![[Hands-on]](Images/AD2K4/hands-on.jpg)