Was a good turnout last night - about 40 people crammed into the Tuggerah store and learned a few things about IYA2009 and Galileo, then I gave a 10 minute talk with slideshow of my best images running on a TV in the background.
Lots of gasps and ooh/aahs at the right places which was nice
The sky cleared just enough for us to take two of their telescopes up to the roof of the Westfield shopping centre and we managed to get some viewing of the Moon and Saturn.
Even though Saturn was only viewed in a 70mm refractor with a 20mm and 10mm eyepiece, people were still suitably impressed with the view. As cliche as it sounds (we always say people say this), a child said "it looks like a drawing". People actually DO say that when they see Saturn for the first time!
It was quite hard actually finding the objects in the first place - they didn't have a diagonal at first so it wouldn't come to focus, and the red dot finders had no batteries in them so trying to find Saturn without a finderscope was damn hard.
But we eventually succeeded and hopefully a few people left happy converts.
Great to see Geoff (gmbfilter) and John Bambury there. I actually knew Ferne (the organiser) from Karate! Small world.
