Astro night for the Girl Guides

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Last night a group of us, with four from the Macarthur Astronomical Society, assembled at Mt Annan Botanical Gardens to provide support for a very big Girl Guides Event, this one

https://www.girlguides-nswact.org.au/GG/whats_on/courses/GG/Events/Event_Display.aspx?EventKey=EV1601

Our participation was arranged through the herculean efforts of Alex (Mental4astro), and I think we will not ever truly know the extent of the difficulties the whole thing provided him. So, well done Alex, because it turned out terrifically well according to the comments I got.

Participants were (not necessarily in order of genius):

Peter Hickey
Geoff White
Nick Loveday
Adrian Graham
Ed Malones
John Rombi (MAS)
Alex Massey
John Briggs (MAS)
Dimithri Perera
Mischa Perera
Noel Sharpe (MAS)
Peter Goodwin (MAS)

On arrival the sky was not promising, with a thick high haze, the sort that makes a bad sky-glow. We were escorted by rangers to a most suitable high vantage point for set-up, with a good all-round horizon, and then were fed dinner by the efficient Girl Guides' organisers.

It was dark by then, so we returned to the scopes, and were treated to a most pretty sight as all the young Guides, more than 150 from all parts of the State, formed a long line with torches on the far side of a small valley, and trekked their way towards us.

The sky haze slowly cleared from a situation where really only Jupiter was visible, and I then found I could show them the Trapezium and Orion Nebula in my C8. One young lass felt she could definitely see some blue with a slight suggestion of orange.

Others were inspecting Jupiter of course, at different magnifications, and were excited to see the Galilean moons. Io and Europa were close together. They viewed Rigel Kent (Toliman), and all were startled to see and learn of binary stars.

I got many questions about black holes, supernovae, aliens and SETI, the fate of our sun, and even about the cost of the space programme generally. There were no passes of the ISS, Hubble, or iridium flares predicted, or we could even have put on a bit of witchcraft !

This sort of stuff is rewarding, and I told many of the youngsters they could make a good career in astronomy, mentioning Prof Penny Sackett, Ellen Stofan, and the late Sally Ride. You can't go on too much with that, but some listened.

Cheers

[pfitzgerald]

Well done guys - it's a great thing that you all did - and who knows what spark(s) of interest to pursue astronomy as a hobby or even perhaps a career you kindled last night.

Paul

[dimithri86]

Hi all,

This was a great night for several reasons:
1. The weather cleared up at the right time.
2. This was my first group event, so it was good to meet fellow enthusiasts. Astronomy folk are a very friendly helpful bunch, and I got lots of tips and help from everyone.
3. It was a good opportunity for my wife to see what goes on when astronomers meet. I suspect if I had taken her to a proper all night meeting with only astronomers, she would have quickly got bored of the jibberish we talk. She quickly picked up how to move the dob to track Orion, and had fun talking to the kids.
4. Mostly importantly some of the kids were in awe of the seeing Jupiter so large, and hearing their comments on how cool it was very rewarding. I’m sure this event will inspire some of the kids to be most interested in science.

[Kunama]

Sounds like a very impressive effort by all concerned, hopefully life changing for some of the young people. Well done :2thumbs:

[killswitch]

The general response i got from seeing Jupiter: omg that's so cool!

One of the kids actually pointed to out to me that they could see the great red spot. I had to look for myself to confirm and sure enough it just began transiting.

I asked each one of them to count how many bands they could see. I got answers from 2 to 8. A couple of them kept coming back to have a longer look at it.

One kid also pointed out a moving satellite.

[hickny]

The set up site was around the "Wedding Knot" and as the Sun set we could see a thin crescent moon in the West.

There were dobs the biggest being an 18" SDM and the smallest a 6" Skywatcher. A few C8s and a refractor or two. So the guides got to see different telescope types also.

It was an early night, we were escorted out by the ranger around 9pm. Viewing lasted around 2 hours from 6:30pm - 8:30pm.

It was very pleasing to meet up with old friends and make some new ones as well.

Thanks Alex (Mental4astro) for inviting me to participate.

[mental4astro]

I got there a bit earlier to introduce ourselves, and did a recie of the site. I was able to listen in on Dr Karl's presentation. It was quite a spectacle to see Dr Karl have the sea of blue all focused on him.

I need to thank the Garden's rangers for being so accommodating to our requirements. The site at the Tie The Knot sculpture proved brilliant for us to set up around, and gave the Guides an unexpected night-time trek to get to us.

The night was a really good one. I had a problem with my camera, but all was not lost as my station became "Alex's cosmology corner", :lol: The Guides sat around for how ever long they wanted and were free to ask whatever questions they had, and I used my laser to point out items in the sky that served the purposes in replies.

Got to point out Leo (the Guides got a thrill when they worked out it outline! :) ), some of the Sky Lore around Orion and Canis Major, pointed out Castor an Pollux that form Gemini, and other bits and pieces.

A very special thank you to Meesha, Dimithri's wife, who surprised us all by turning up to help! So good to have a female presenter, and not just a bunch of blokes, at what was a female orientated event. Thanks Meesha! :) Most of the pics below are thanks to Meesha.

And thank you to Peter H., Geoff, Adrian, Ed, John B., John R., Noel, Peter G. & Dimithri for helping out. Particularly the those of you who answered my call for help with only two weeks notice, and on a New Moon night. Thanks lads, :)

Alex.

[KissMyAsteroid]

That's fantastic. How rewarding. Well done.

I try to inspire my 11yo daughter as much as I can, she has an interest in science, so I'm lucky.

One of these kids could make a huge impact in science, you guys may have ignited or fanned the flame.

Nice work!

Mick

[AEAJR]

Great report guys. Wish I could have been there with you.

[Rogering]

Great effort, I look forward to assisting in the next event...