Monday 26 October 2009

More Outreach Activities


Its been a while since i last posted, but there have been a fair few successful outreach activities in the past few weeks.

September 29 saw an evening down in Chipping Sodbury, just north of Bristol. Although the weather was not looking optimistic, the clouds cleared and reasonable views of the Moon, Jupiter and M31 were had.

We had our open evenings at Bredon Cricket Club on the 13th and 20th of October. The 13th was again an evening of dodging round the clouds, but a few sights were seen. Ocotber 20th was clouded out completely, though - however we had Australian astronomer Bob Evans with us, so we were able to open up the clubhouse and Bob gave us a talk about Supernovae - did i mention that Bob has the world record for visual discoveries of supernovae (42). Photo shows, Bob, me (center), and Kevin Taylor (with his Light Bridge).

Last Saturday (24th Oct) - we had an astronomy evening at the WWT Slimbridge - again the weather did not look optimistic, but after the talk, the skies cleared a bit, and it was quite nice between the clouds - as the evening went on the cloud cover reduced. Again mostly the 'chocolate box' sights - the Moon, Jupiter, M31, M13, Albireo, and Mizar - could probably have found a few more things, but getting to grips with the EQ mount over the Dob takes a bit of getting used to.

So, will be nice to have a rest for a couple of weeks - though no doubt there are more things to do - BAA Journal Sky Notes and things for the Cotswold AS newsletter.