Birthday Star Party

[pvelez]

So after watching her old man fight with his scope, clouds, the cold and rotten seeing, my 10 year daughter decided at the weekend that her birthday party should be a star party.:screwy:

The prospect of entertaining up to 9 girls who are about 10 years old with my scope and a smile fills me with something approaching panic. Add to the mix the fact that I live less than 10 km from the CBD of Sydney and the assigned evening is about 4 days after the full moon and you can understand my concern.:scared:

Lastly, what to do if the clouds roll in?

So I thought I'd turn to the gurus - how would you entertain a mob of pre-teens? Some thoughts include:

1. Use some props to give an idea of the scale of the solar system

2. Explain how the tilt of the earth's axis influences the seasons

3. Hand out some star charts and see if they can find a few prominent objects - they need to be very prominent eg Jupiter, Venus, Crux, Scorpius

4. Give them access to a scope and ask them to see and describe - Omega Centauri or the mmons of Jup

5. Again, with a scope, count the number of double stars they can find in a constellation eg Crux, Centaurus.

Do you have any other ideas? :help:

I have access to 2 scopes - the LXD75 and an ETX 125 - and a couple of sets of binos.

Pete

[seeker372011]

i entertained a sleepover party of just three plus my daughter and their attention span was pretty short

the moon and saturn grabbed their imagination-dsos left them cold unfortunately

i just thought later on i should have got them to sketch what they saw and the best sketch wins a lolly bag
narayan

[Doug]

Make up a short observing list with the promise of a simpsons movie or spice girls or whatever 10 y0 girls are into these days. I agree with Narayan, Attention spans can be measured with an egg timer.

Doug

[pvelez]

Thanks guys - you confirmed my fears. I will have the egg timer at the ready

I'll let you know how we go.

Pete