Tonight the primary school had their Science Showcase Evening, where they had set up a heap of great science activities and displays in the classrooms and invited the kids and families back after school. I offered to bring Dobby along in the hope that the evening would be clear enough to see something (at least the moon).
As it turned out, the morning's cloud and rain cleared by the afternoon and got better and better over the evening - lucky that.
I set up Dobby on the four-square courts out the front and started by setting up my sun box to check out any sun spots. There were clouds on the Western horizon that limited the time available to demonstrate to a few passing people the smallish sunspots that were visible. It was possible to make out just two small spots at the bottom of the image and another about a third of the way up from the bottom. It definately is a quiet patch for sunspots right now.
Fortunately, the full Moon was rising just as we lost the sun behind cloud, so I swung Dobby around and started showing kids and parents the Moon as it rose.
It just occurred to me that I totally missed the opportunity to point out to people the optical illusion that makes the Moon look bigger when it is on the horizon - I could have demonstrated how it is the same size through the telescope when looked at later.
The Moon started faint against the sky, but quickly brightened as dusk set in. With a decent target I started getting a lot more people coming to visit, and had quite a crowd for a while. A couple of the kids showed some real interest, and one was full of great questions clarifying his understanding about the spin of the moon, where was the Sea of Tranquility, why did the telescope make the image upside down, and we had a short chat about his telescope at home (it seems it has dodgy lenses making some chromatic aberations) (fuzzy colours around the edges)
There was also a small stampede of teachers who escaped their rooms to have a look through the telescope when word got back that there were some interesting views of the Moon to be had. This was great fun as there was a lot of excitement and some laughs as mobiles were held against the eyepiece to get photos (with some success!)
The evening finished at 6pm, before it got dark enough to see the planets - which was a shame because the sky had cleared beautifully and the sky was loaded with targets. From the Western horizon there was Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, then right above us was Mars and Saturn, and then the very bright full Moon to the East.
So it was just a final few of the teachers who were able to stay back and check out Jupiter and Saturn before we all had to leave and lockup the school. Jupiter was pretty good, although a bit blurry through the thicker air near the horizon. All four Galilaen moons were visible in a neat row, but Saturn was gorgeous as always and blew a few minds.
Last shot of the evening - just after looking at Saturn. In the background Venus, Mercury and Jupiter are visible. Unfortunately a blurry shot as I only had time to point n shoot the camera.
