Back to school

[slotdrag]

On 04/18/06 i had to go to my daughters school and talk astronomy to 70 fifth graders. I took in posters. Pictures i took through my scope put on a cd and projected to a big screen. Also video through my scope. I took in my daughters 60mm refractor. And my C8N reflector. Also i had bought a meade 60mm reflector off ebay and a work mate gave me a 60mm traq scope and i had a drawing for these two scopes. One boy and one girl won. I talked for 50 minutes answered ?'s and had a really fun time. I've always been interrested in astronomy but never got into it until two years ago. I would love to do more of this with the kids and i'm going to as i can afford to. If anybody can help please do i want to give away more scopes if anybody has some old scopes sitting around to donate the kids would love them. They wont care how great they are as long as they could see the moon. I hope i'm making a difference in somebodys life. Any comments or suggestions welcome. Thanks Rick.

[Dragon Star]

What your doing...is great, it's people like you that make a difference, good luck and I wish you the best in your efforts...

[Superluminal]

Keep it up. We need more people like you. Also, is there an astronomy club in your area? If so, they could be of great help.

[jfribrg]

I read somewhere about a group of ATMers (no not that type of ATM; I'm talking about Amateur Telescope Makers) who made a bunch of cheap Dobsonian reflectors from plywood and PVC pipe for some school kids. The diameter was a non-standard size (im thinking 4" instead of the more typical 4.5") because the local Home Depot didn't carry PVC pipe large enough for a 4.5" mirror. The smaller size made the mirror grinding easier. Apparently it is easier to make a spherical concavity than a parabolic one, but for small mirrors the difference is negligible so a spherical mirror is what they did. I forget how they got the mirror blanks. They might have used the bottoms of pyrex measuring cups or something like that. The adults did the mirror grinding, and the kids build the mount. They all learned a bit about optics and analytic geometry, and they got a working telescope too ( which is far better than those trashy christmas scopes that they sell in the toy stores).

[slotdrag]

Man that would be so cool.