Are you sure of the Forum description wording???!!!
I realize that in my eagerness and passion to share Astronomy it may seem like an infliction however...
Clear Skies...
Bob Riddle
Are you sure of the Forum description wording???!!!
I realize that in my eagerness and passion to share Astronomy it may seem like an infliction however...
Clear Skies...
Bob Riddle
i recently had the pleasure of some "in the park" shared astronomy. i was waiting for my girlfriend to meet up with me. we were going to do a bit of moon gazing. i had arrived there about an hour earlier to set up. there were two grade six boys running around the park while their parents were jogging the track. i was happy to find they were really interested in what i was doing and wanted to look threw my telescope.they got to look at the full moon so they got a good show.they were also very short so i had to move my set up next to a bench for them to reach my eyepiece. one word of advise to other people thinking of doing the same thing. there is no limit on the amount of times you should tell younger kids not to touch the scope...no limit. i think its just there first reaction lol.
Sometimes you do need to just give someone a wallop over the head with a 14 incher... haha. I do find that whenever I go out moongazing with my 15x 70 binocs that many people ask questions and are eager to see. Now I tend to bring my tripod to save time on allowing passerbyers to get a glimpse of luna!
For your information, I moved the posts on Yuri's Night to a new thread.
Regarding people touching the scope I inadvertantly found that since I can't get my astrostar tracking to work properly I have to use the remote to track manually. By letting the person looking through the scope handle the remote to track manually they don't put their hands on the scope. Also I find that seeing the Moon glide across the field gives a greater sense of its grandure.
Picture books at Junior Primary level, advancing to more complicated areas of Astronomy and Cosmology at high school level.
The awesomeness nature of Astronomy and Cosmology will grab enough of the younger brigade to maintain and foster more interest in space endeavours.
I took my young bloke out to central west NSW when he was 8 years old, to a place called Parkes, which is the site of one of the largest radio telescopes around and famous in Australia for relaying pictures and data from Apollo 11 back to NASA when NASA was out of contact.
Start them young to foster an Interest in Astronomy. Space...It's all around us and plenty of it!
I just open my mouth and start blabbing... and people seem to like it.
Seattle may be one of the worst places to have an interest in astronomy. Although i have found that because of this there is a pretty big interest when people have the opportunity to interact. When its clear I sherpa one of my telescopes to a nearby park and people will usually be very interested. I have a lot of free time i would certainly donate if there were opportunities nearby but so far this is about it.
Set up scope in park, or if you do a camping holiday, set up in campground. Always draws a crowd.