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Thanks to everybody. The "show & tell" went well. It was supposed to be one class of about 25 9 year old kids, but the other two classes piggy-backed on the demonstration, so there were about 75 kids total! The teachers have done a good job with the kids teaching them about the sun/moon/planets in the previous two weeks, so they basically just wanted to give the kids a chance to look through a telescope. I set up two, and each kid got about 30 seconds at the eyepiece on each. Most kids could see the sunspots in one and moon in the other quite well, although some (about 7 of 75) never could get a good look. Some (about 15) immediately said "wow, cool!" At one point, the sun was interfered with by the very top of a pine tree - could have done better planning there I guess. I just did my best to point the mounts north, and then accepted the two-star alignment without any adjustment. Both tracked well enough that I only adjusted them twice during the whole 45 minute session. Each class of about 25 kids was lectured to for about three minutes about the dangers of looking at the sun. "How long can you look at the sun without going blind?" "These telescopes magnify the sun 40x, so now how long?" I think they got the message that they would be instantly blinded if the look at the sun through a telescope. Amazingly, in one class, a little girl raised her hand and said "unless you have an appropriate filter." Smart kid!
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