I showed some visitors the observatory and recited perhaps more history than they would expect to here about the old telescopes, restoration of the observatory, etc. We had a half a dozen members, Dan Barriball, Tim Dey, Tim Campbell, James French (who isn't a member yet, but is present almost as much as a member and frequent visitor to Faac meetings and HJRO), a few visitors came by as well, a couple of guys stopped by earlier and then later we had a neighbor stop by who lives close by and discovered we were open by observing the parking lot lights had been turned off.
I forgot to post to the web that we were going to be open.
I thought a couple other members of FAAC would arrive, as they said they might stop by. The sky was clear, but had some high cirrus clouds and haze. We viewed Saturn, m13, the ring nebula, the double double, and Neptune. A few stars. We didn't do a lot of moving of the telescope from one object to another, but were more involved in talking and discussing observing gear and showing some telescopes we had there. Also we had to restart and set a new model in the mount after a little computer software accident. We also had Tim work on taking a photo of m13 with his new Canon 60da camera.
We went over many terms and concepts, everything from mirror grinding to various telescopes on the market today. James from time to time surfed the web looking at telescopes for sale and pointing out features and asking questions about different telescopes and their strengths or weaknesses.
Now for some photos, but these are not photos from last night but yesterday afternoon. I ate at Buddy's pizza in Dearborn on the outside patio at dinner time and took a small telescope of mine with a safe solar filter on the telescope. To view the sun. My goal was to eat on the patio and have the little tabletop telescope on the table outside and look at sunspots and show the sun to anyone who happened by and wanted to take a look.
About 15 people looked at the sun over dinner. There was a band playing at the library next door. There was an outside crowd and I could have probably setup near that crowd and had a lot more viewers. But I just wanted to show a few people who happened by and eat dinner. It worked out pretty well.
Had I planned and met with another faac member or two members, we could have perhaps manned a telescope closer to the crowd and ate dinner alternating as we manned the telescope. We would have likely had sixty or more people view the sun and sunspots in that case in about an hour. I was there nearly 90 minutes. 15 people looking through the telescope while eating dinner in 90 minutes made for a fun time.
The oldest to view was an elderly senior citizen lady who was leaving Buddy's with her relatives and husband. They returned and took a look at the sun through the telescope. One family of six people looked at well. Some typical visitors of Buddy's are people who go to Greenfield village or the Henry Ford Museum, so they like science and enjoy looking through a telescope.
One guy I talked to said he didn't want to through the telescope, because he used to weld and the welding environment, more than one welder cramped in a small space, caused his eyes to be exposed to uv light. Whenever they would flip up the mask, they would get blasted by the light from other welders working nearby. His comment was, I already have cataracts from JV light from welding, I don't want to look at the sun. I could have mentioned that the filter on my telescope is totally safe and you can't be exposed to uv looking through the telescope. I mentioned that there are fourteen grades of welding glass and only number 14 green glass, or number 14 with the golden coating is safe for solar viewing.
We use special solar filters designed for astronomers to safely view the sun, don't use a filter unless you know it's safe. Many homemade solar filters from common items are NOT SAFE. Don't use sunglasses to view the sun, and don't use polarizing filters to view the sun. Make sure you have a safe filter to view the sun, or consult with an astronomer.
Enough chatter for now here is the basic setup I used.
(below, the iPad is handy from time to time to show photos from HJRO when people ask questions.)
After leaving Buddy's pizza I ran an errand and then found that I had a little time before opening the observatory. There was a car show at Sears shopping center. I decided to drive by there and setup my binocular telescope with solar filters to take another look and show a few visitors the sun again. I had a half a dozen people look through the telescope. I answered a few questions and answered a few questions about telescope mirror building which was asked by a student from Lincoln Park school system.
I had four telescopes and binoculars available and could show a few the differences between the construction techniques for different telescopes.
A fun time.
Last night my goal was to leave the observatory at about midnight, but we had so much fun talking and answering questions some of us stayed out until roughly 2am.
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