For requests for a telescope outing, please email Outreach@asemonline.org . For those who would like to help support our efforts to bring astronomy to the public, free of charge, please consider joining our society ($50) or otherwise offering your support. We are a tax-deductible 501-3c charitable organization.
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posted Nov 9, 2011 9:09 PM by Jim Twellman
This event was set up by Bill Gatewood of Wright City. It was coordinated thru the Wright City School District, and supported also by the local Masons. The evening was a little cold, around 45 degrees at sunset. Not bad for us, but often a deterrent for elementary kids or their parents. It was definitely "late" by historical dates of Astro Outreach "road shows".
Bill had gotten local media attention, and it was well promoted. Despite the temps, the skies were beautiful and we had at least 60 attendees. Over 50 of them came early to listen to the introductory presentation given in the school cafeteria, that Bill had prepared. That presentation started at 6:30 and marked the official beginning. Some of us had scopes set up earlier, since sunset now is 5pm. A short handful came by for an early treat. The crowd here was mostly elementary school parents and their children.
In addition to Bill Gatewood's scopes and mine, scopes were manned by Chuck Simms and Jerry Kelley. We entertained views thru scopes of Jupiter, the nearly full Moon, M15 globular, M57 Ring Nebula, and other items.
Our efforts were well appreciated, and Bill is considering a Spring effort here as well. I noticed several very interested and well-informed kids whose parents knew of their child's passion for this. That alone made it worth my time. My only regret was that very bright nearly full moon that we had shining over us tonight! Good for a public event, just hard and less rewarding to look at dimmer deep-space objects I invited all of them to our Friday Night Open House events, so maybe we'll see some of them in the near future at Broemmelsiek Park.
Jim Twellman |
posted Oct 28, 2011 10:15 PM by Jim Twellman
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updated Nov 1, 2011 7:55 PM
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Per request for telescopes for a show-n-tell I brought two scopes and performed a solo presentation at Francis Howell North high school. I set up on the grass median next to visitor's parking, which was a short walk outside from the classroom. Three classes composing 70 students had opportunities to look at my two scopes, and to look thru them as well. The classes were currently studying how telescopes work, so it was a good opportunity to look at real scopes from inside and out.
I was still nursing a bad back, so I dragged out my 4.25" Edmund Newtonian reflector. I had hoped to also do solar projection with it, but the setup that I chose proved to be too much effort while handling two scopes. So, I let it be the Show-n-tell scope and pointed it at a nearby cell tower, complete with birds! It helped to have a scope focused on a terrestrial point, to let the observer learn how to position their eye to the light cone of an eyepiece's focus. It also sparked comments on the views being upside-down. That led back to the illustrations of the focal diagram, which nicely shows this upside-down effect.
I set up my 8" SCT with a white-light solar filter and left it to follow the sun while the students looked at the sun spots on the white disk. A very large sunspot was dead-center, and several smaller spots were scattered across Sol's disk. I had a large poster showing the sun in various filters and events (Ha, white light with Mercury transit, solar projection showing Mercury transit, and yesterday's Spaceweather.com solar picture). I did experience some problems with this scope's drive, and believe that I have a bad wiring connection to work on soon. My poster included a picture of the sun from the prior day showing the position of the sunspots to compare to their observations today.
We started out at 11:35 and finished by 2:35. The teacher (Lauren) was very helpful and the high school students were well behaved. The school had a big rivalry game coming up, and the Cardinals in the World Series game 7 also were topics of great interest and excitement.
The students were informed of our presence EVERY Friday night at Broemmelsiek Park and business cards with our club's name, web site, and Yahoo! Group name were given to those who were interested. I hope and expect a couple handfuls of these students to visit us at Broemmelsiek Park in the very near future. Each class had some good questions and they were a lot of fun to share with.
Jim Twellman
Discussing sun spots, solar cycles, and where our weather comes from. | Looking at Sunspots in the 8" f/10 SCT
Looking thru the 4.25" f/10 Newt at the top of a cell tower
One sunspot was so large, you could see it at 1x with a simple filter.
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posted Oct 23, 2011 7:50 AM by Jim Twellman
It was a mostly cloudy sky as I left home and headed to Troy, and I'm wondering if we'll see anything tonight. I arrived at the Troy fairgrounds at 6:40pm and see that Mike Clemente is already setup and waiting for the clouds to clear in front of Polaris, so he can do his alignment. Few stars are visible at this point, but we can see the summer triangle. While I’m setting up, the first couple of visitors arrive, and father and son sneaking over early to beat the crowd. I did a quick one star alignment on Altair and then moved to Jupiter, who was still low on the horizon and covered with high clouds. It wasn't the best view, but you could faintly see two bands and one moon, but baggers can't be choosey. Jerry Kelley got there a little before 7pm and started setting up. At the same time the first wave of scouts came in and we were open for business. Jupiter stayed in the scope for the first hour and a half, but always had clouds over it. Most of the time you could see it with your eyes through the clouds, but even when you couldn't, it was always visible in the scope. Then about 8:30pm I lost it completely. Looking up I could see a clearing was on it way so I continued to talk to the group showing pictures of Jupiter and it's moon with my iPad. Just as I was explaining to a couple of scouts that had stuck around that Jupiter would pop out any time, it happened, the King arrived. It was beautiful, the bands were clear, and Callisto, Europa and Io formed a triangle above it, with Ganymede far below it. I quickly centered and focused it and opened it up to the crowd. What came next was over an hour of Ooh's and Ahh's, Awesome's, and other adjectives that meant they liked what they saw. By 10pm the crowd had thinned to a few diehards and Mike and I did a last call to look through the scopes. We started breaking down about 10:15 and we looked up to see a large cloud bank rolling it. Perfect timing. Mike had move around a lot more than I did. Objects I know he looked at are Albireo, Vega, M13 and M57 and M45. Jerry had a taken on a young Padawan and let him guide the scope. This young man had found Jupiter, Andromeda Galaxy, the Pleiadies, and a few more I don't remember. Jerry was still there when Mike and I left around 10:30. It turned out to be a great night and we guessed there were 100 to 150 people. I know we had a lot of repeats once the clouds cleared. I got home in time to see Albert hit a homer and the Cards win 16-7. Yes, a good night indeed! Chuck
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Well, Tonight WASN'T a total "Bust" after all. Early, we were fighting clouds that were almost opaque. In fact we were having a lot of trouble seeing Jupiter, through them. So I issued a challenge to some scouts that were milling around to see who the first one was that could see it, because I couldn't. A 14 yr old Scout was the first one and as a "Reward" got to be the Telescope Operator of my 12 inch Dob, for the whole evening. So, during the evening, as different parts of the sky would clear temporarily, we did a little hopping around looking at various objects, including M-57, M-56, M-31 & 32, Albireo, M45,, the Double Cluster, The OWL Cluster,, Epsilon Lyrae, M15, M2, the Pleaides & of course Jupiter several times at both Low & High magnifications, as the sky permitted. My young Scout found most of these objects with very little help from me, but would always ask "Is This It"? Occasionally he was aimed wrong, but for the most part he was dead-on. He'd never looked through a telescope before, but he had a lot of fun tonight. I also had my 15x70 Biniculars with me & passed them around among the Adults that were there, finding bright objects, naked-eye, then giving them the Binocs & letting them find things on their own. There were several gasps & WOWs from the adults when they saw the Double-Cluster & the Pleaides & M31- Jerry Kelley |
posted Oct 16, 2011 3:53 PM by Jim Twellman
Another successful astronomy viewing at the Cuivre River State Park beach parking lot for the campers there last night. I guesstimate we had over 100 CubScouts, their parents and siblings, and campers looking through four telescopes
that Mike Clemente, Jim and Yvonne Roe, Jim Twellman, and myself had set up. It
was very dark there and because the Moon hadn't risen yet, the Milky Way was
very easily seen. We were also treated to the International Space Station (ISS),
two Iridium flares, and a Russian satellite flyover. One of the Iridium Flares
was possibly the brightest I've ever seen, probably bright enough to have been
seen in broad daylight. Some of the objects viewed were Vega, Albireo, M57, M13,
M31-32, Jupiter, M27, M15, the Veil Nebula, The Double Cluster, and the Owl
Cluster. We pulled out around 10:00 pm.
John Sgouros
The event started around 7:45 with an excellent lead-in star lecture by Jim Roe. The crowd was VERY pleased with the "Called Shots" on the mag -8 flares and the ISS flyby too. The few stragglers that hung around until just before 1opm got to see Jupiter and its' moons for dessert. We especially noted to those folks that we do this "every Friday night" at Broemmelsiek.
This beach location is far from perfect, but it is workable. North-South is very good, but trees block 50% of the sky East & West. We had no real problems with traffic, but had headlight issues with cars coming into the lot. In addition to the Scouts and their families, it was reported that we also had guests from the Sierra Club who were also camping (at Camp Cuivre). - Jim T. |
posted Oct 5, 2011 4:59 AM by Jim Twellman
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updated Oct 5, 2011 5:38 AM
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The weather continued to be in our favor this evening. The haze noted this morning was not evident at sunset. Manning scopes again were Marv Stewart, John and Kate Sgouros, and myself. The first wave of kids came out just before 7:45. They were shown views of the Moon, the Andromeda galaxy M31, the double star Mizar, the globular cluster M13, and the planetary nebula M57. The last wave of kids got to see Jupiter and its' four moons as it climbed up over the tree line. Jupiter managed to show a little detail, even so far down in the atmosphere.
The kids were great and the teachers and counselors were on top of things. We finished the last group right at 9PM. We had about 80 students plus teachers and counselors for a total estimate of 100. I hung around for a little to get a glimpse of comet Garradd in the moonlight before packing up.
Jim T
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posted Oct 4, 2011 5:02 AM by Jim Twellman
The skies were gorgeous as we set up four scopes at Camp Derricotte just before sundown. John and Kate Sgouros brought their refractor and the 13"Coulter dob, Marv Stewart brought the 8" Lightbridge, and I brought the 8"SCT. We got the first customers at 7:45pm. They came out one class at a time (20-36) and divided up into 4 lines. In addition to showing them objects thru the scopes, they got to see the Milky Way (show of hands typical of 50% that had not seen it ever before), some constellations, and a view of the new Chinese space station ( Tiangong-1) naked-eye.
Scope views included : the Moon at 1st Qtr, the Ring Nebula M57, the double star Albireo, the globular cluster Messier 13, and the Andromeda galaxy M31. When I showed Albireo I had a lot of questions about "what two stars are we looking at?" even after I pointed out with my laser pointer that we were looking at Albireo (it was somewhat unclear that magnification split this single star). Some were confused as to why one glob (M13) was different from the other "glob" (M31). The sky was quite transparent, so I'm guessing that the fuzzy stuff (not resolved) was more of a conceptual problem. I would then point out to them the Milky Way again, and the fact that our (naked) eyes do not resolve the stars even in our own galaxy, which looks a bit fuzzy too. It is regretful that we did not have a good planet to show, since Jupiter did not clear the trees until we left. The last group finished up at 9:15 and we were packed and leaving by 9:30.
The kiddos were well behaved and had good teachers with them. The kids' version of Albireo's colors were quite varied, as usual. A single shared Focus is one issue ("rainbow" and 3-5 colors seen), but there is also something different regarding either perception or ability still at this age. The teenage counselors and teachers' color answers were much less varied. I'm sure that color-blindness enters into this equation as well.
It was a beautiful evening all in all. We had a lot of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' to remind us of why we enjoy doing this. |
posted Sep 28, 2011 4:49 AM by Jim Twellman
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updated Sep 28, 2011 6:04 AM
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It was partly cloudy for John Sgouros, Marv Stewart and myself when we arrived around 7pm. The kiddos were doing paired square dancing on the volleyball court as we set up, which really took me back to my own experience as a child camping at Cuivre River about 4 decades before. It also reminded me that my oldest son, at that age, had to learn to do the "Two Step" with a girl in Katy Tx to the tune of "The Cotton-Eyed Joe". We were optimistic that the clouds would thin out, but we knew that we'd have at least some degree of hide-n-seek. John brought along Kate and a second scope for her to utilize. So we had a refractor, an 8" dob, a 13.1" dob, and an 8" SCT all set up in a row at Camp Derricotte.
We got started around 7:45 and finished up at 9:00. I was surprised that we finished that soon, but evidently we had 90 people instead of the 132 that was expected. Due to this, instead of platoons switching in and out, we had the whole crowd at once, with lines of around 20 at each scope. It went okay, but it was evident that it was more of a challenge due to the necessary crowd control. The teachers and counselors were great. They were on top of things and did a good job, but I could tell that the longer lines were not easier on anybody. The two things that stood out for me was (1) trying to talk above the noise, and (2) folks piled up too close to the viewer, making him'/her less comfortable. This was seconded by Marv. He & I agreed that a 10 person line max. works a lot better. It wasn't bad tonight, just noticeably not as good.
I pointed out the Milky Way when addressing the group just before we headed to the telescopes. This was right after they turned off the lights at the volleyball court, so I'm not sure how many could really see it. I was glad to later hear a teacher ask the students about our place in the Milky Way, after they were more adjusted to the dark. I'm sure that half of these kids had not previously seen their home galaxy. I showed M57 (the Ring Nebula) at 132x in my SCT all night, with only a few, very short "blackouts" of cloud cover. I believe Marv, John, and Kate were showing views of M13, M22, Albireo, and Mizar. Jupiter had not cleared the trees yet by the time we left, but was up nicely in the east for the drive home. I knew that an Io shadow event was going on and I was almost tempted to head to Broemmelsiek for a night cap, but decided to let my back rest instead.
We were fortunate with the weather tonight and we were glad to have given some of these kids their first look through a telescope. I hope they can come on out to Broemmelsiek on our Friday Night Open Houses to see Jupiter in the next month or so.
Jim Twellman |
posted Sep 24, 2011 7:39 PM by Jim Twellman
I arrived at Broemmelsiek about 6:45 and saw flashing lights in the field next to the observatory. It was the Park Ranger marking off extra parking space for the expected large crowd. I opened up the observatory, and also setup my 8" SC. By 7pm about 20 people were there with me and more cars were coming in quickly. From the first family there I was answering questions non-stop, from both adults and kids. One lady and her family brought a 8" dob, so I helped them with it. The collimation was way off, so I took care of it first. Next was dialing in the finder scope. All the time more folks were poring in, by 7:20 there had to be 150 people there, surrounding me 360 degrees. I was like a SM Black home in the middle of a galaxy, if I moved, the bulge moved with me. About 7:40 Jim and Yvonne showed and saved the day. With Yvonne handling crowd control, Jim and I only had 80 or 90 people each, the night got much easier. It was still early so I pointed to Mizar and let everyone look at a nice double star and was easy to point out with my green laser pointer. I didn't know it at the time, but Jim was looking at Albireo, so double stars were the main course for the night. It took about an 60 - 90 min, but the crowd thinned out and we stared looking at a few other objects. I went to M11 and then Jupiter, and Jim was on M31. Grant got there about 9:00, (my time could be off, I didn't have time to look at a watch). He setup quickly had a large following of his own.
The night started out cloudy, but cleared out nicely. It was dewy from the start, and hair dryers were needed often, but the see was good. Jupiter was beautiful. By 10:30 both Jim and I were ready to crash. We packed up and were on the road by 11. Grant stayed behind and a non-member showed up just as I was leaving and brought his scope. I don't remember his name though. By 10:30 both Jim and I were ready to crash. We packed up and were on the road by 11. There were at least three people there who were interested in joining the club. I told them where and when we meet, but I didn't get their names. So, in conclusion..... it was a good night. Chuck
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posted Sep 22, 2011 4:15 PM by Jim Twellman
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updated Sep 25, 2011 12:54 PM
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Clouds were thick throughout the day of this event. We had 2 scopes fitted with white light filters plus the Lunt Hydrogen Alpha solar scope. Once we set up, we took the white-light filters off the two other scopes and lined them up to look at tree tops!
We had a poster, showing printout views of a Hydrogen-Alpha filtered scope showing solar prominences, as well as shots showing white-light filtration revealing sun spots, plus an occasional transit shot of Venus and Mercury.
They listened as we told them how far away the sun is, what it is made of, and how it makes heat and light. We also told them other factoids about our sun, and we allowed them to look thru two scopes (at trees) so that they could be more familiar with viewing thru the eyepiece when they come to Broemmelsiek Park for tomorrow night's "Friday Night Open House".
Richard Kamp, Paul Lineberry, Marvin Stewart, and myself handled this event. We served approximately 220 people (11 classes of about 20 or more each) from 9AM until 1PM. The kids and teachers were well behaved and were happy that we came and did our "show" despite the cloud-out.
The kids were polled and I believe that a significant number of them (greater than half) will be at Broemmelsiek Park tomorrow night.
Jim Twellman
Marv showing the kids the Sun, Mercury, and Saturn behind the clouds via his cellphone. |
Jim, Paul, and Marv giving "sun facts".
Learning to see thru an eyepiece, looking at tree tops!
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posted Sep 13, 2011 8:32 AM by Jim Twellman
We had very good weather, but had a full moon for this event. Approximately 100 fourth-graders plus teachers and counselors for a total of 130 estimated. Marv Stewart, Jerry Kelly and myself manned 3 scopes, showing mostly the Moon, the double star Albireo, and globular cluster Messier 13. Counselors came out later (while the kids were going to bed) and got to see Jupiter, along with double star Ras Algethi, the Ring Nebula (M57), the Dumbbell nebula (M27), the Wild Duck Cluster (M11), and Mizar among other things.
We tried but did not see the fly-by of the X-37B as well as an Iridium Flare as predicted by Heavens-above for Troy. We managed to avoid a third strike when we caught the Hubble Space Telescope skirting the trees only 10 degrees up in the South. The kids were hurriedly scurrying following it while it ducked thru the treetops. Quite a few did not know what the Hubble Space Telescope was, but then again they were just 4th graders.
We started out around 7:50 and finished around 10:20pm. The campers were very appreciative and were well behaved.
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