Astronomy
Day 2001 - April 28th
at the Irvine Spectrum Center and Crystal Cove State Park.
A report by Liam
Kennedy
National Astronomy
Day is one day per year where we have an opportunity to join with many
other organizations with a concerted effort to "Bring Astronomy to
the People".
The past few years
the day has been less than useful as far as viewing - as the weather generally
did not cooperate. Unfortunately - this year was no exception to the trend.
One of our events
were canceled - and the other had very limited opportunity for quality
viewing.
Irvine Spectrum
Center
We had planned to
exhibit from Noon until about 9pm initially for daytime viewing of the
Sun, Moon and maybe even a few planets. Moving into the evening until
9pm we'll pretty much be just showing the moon. On the day the morning
started with dense low cloud - and didn't really improve all that much
throughout the day. Near the end of our time - for about the last hour
we managed to get some quality time looking at Sun spots as the clouds
had started to thin out at that time.
In any case - we met
many OC Residents who were very interested in what we had to show and
wanted to get lots of information about our club - so despite the poor
conditions I know that we probably recruited at least a dozen new members.
We had a very small
area to setup telescopes - but it was plenty large enough for our needs.
The following members
helped out on this day;
Mitchell Nunn: Meade
LX-10 8"
Anthony Obra: Celestron 8"
Liam Kennedy: Meade LX200 10"
Anna Kennedy: helped with setup/breakdown
You can see below
some photos of our setup at the Spectrum. We had setup a display including
live images of the Sun from the SOHO satellite. I managed to hook up my
computer to the Internet using a wireless connection. This allowed us
to show passersby what they would be able to see if the clouds were not
there.

Click to see larger image

Mitch and Tony - is that the Sun we can see?
click for larger image
Thank-you Irvine Company
for their support in arranging for us to setup up on their property.
Crystal Cove State
Park.
This was canceled
due to the cloud cover!
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May 16th 2001
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