| It was bound to happen.
After enjoying perfect weather for our first two Astronomy Day celebrations
at the W. A. Gayle Planetarium, April showers rained on our parade this
year. And, while this precluded any telescopic observing by the visitors,
we did manage to have an excellent turn-out, thanks to the ambitious publicity
efforts of Rick Evans, director of the planetarium, and his staff.
By 5:00 PM, it was obvious that we would be looking at telescopes—not through them, so we set up all of the telescopes up in the lobby of the planetarium. It afforded an excellent opportunity for the visitors see some serious amateur equipment as well as have questions about telescopes, amateur astronomy, and their own hardware answered and explained. Rick had sandwiches and drinks for those of us who had a hard time fitting dinner into the evening’s schedule. The evening began with AAS president, Rhon Jenkins, narrating the Power Point presentation (created by Rick Evans) introducing the Auburn Astronomical Society to the guests, explaining who we are and what we do. Following Rhon’s AAS promo, Rick turned on the stars in the planetarium (where it never rains), gave us a sky show and concluded with a laser demonstration. From there we adjourned to the lobby for our optical show-and-tell and answered questions that ranged from “What telescope should I get for my child.”, to “Can you put this telescope together for me?” Scott’s demonstration of his new Paramount go-to mount driven by his TheSky software running on his laptop. Rhon’s 18-inch mirror in the bottom of his StarMaster Dobsonian was equally impressive.
|
| Rhon Jenkins' 18-inch Starmaster dominates
the planetarium lobby.
Joyce Jenkins is shown here assisting an Astronomy Day visitor. |
 |
 |
Scott Thompson's 7-inch AstroPhysics
sits
atop his new Paramount go-to Mount. |
| For an afternoon, the planetarium resembles a telescope store showroom with AAS members explaining the differences and advantages of the various optical and mechanical designs represented. |  |
| Again, our heart-felt thanks to Rick Evans, Rick
Fanning and Herb Traywick for doing all of the work on publicity and logistics,
and without who this event would not even be taking place.
Special thanks also to those who went to considerable effort to bring their equipment out on such a rainy evening:
Rhon and Joyce Jenkins; 18-inch StarMaster
Also representing the society and lending moral support were: Dorn Majure, Nichole Long, Dennis Grantham, Jeff Graves, Pauline and Jasmine Bechtold. A sign-up sheet for visitors interested in keeping up with what we do, yielded several new names to the e-mail list:
Tyler Tombacaris yacker@knology.net
Astronomy Day 2000 has been the most productive yet as far as outreach to new amateurs goes. |