Hi,
Not sure if this is the right forum area for this report but here goes.
The Horsham Learning Center (a.k.a. HUB) which is an adult community learning center runs astronomy nights once per term. The last one being on 29/05/2009. This is held at the instructor's farm at Laharum which is about 32km from Horsham.
This is the first one that I attended. The road out was mostly sealed but there was about 3km of rough, and sometimes corrugated gravel road at the end of the trip. The gravel road was that rough that I could only drive at between 15kph and 30kph. About 400m from the farm I saw two kangaroos on the left side of the gravel road and had to slow down even further. One kangaroo hopped across the road in front of me. One other participant reported seeing one kangaroo.
I was the first one to arrive and was made most welcome. The instructor, Gil Hopkins, had two telescopes set up. One was an 8" solid tube Celestron Dob which only had a Telrad for a finder scope. The other scope was a 12" solid tube Dob.
By the time I had my scope set up, other participants started to arrive. There were somewhere between 10 and 14 altogether. One or two of the other participants brought their telescopes as well but I think that Gil's two scopes and my scope were the main ones used for viewing.
When everyone was there Gil gave a little background of his interest in astronomy. He then started to point out various stars and constellations and explained how the stars, planets and constellations moved in the sky. After about 10 minutes it was time to start viewing what was up there.
We started with the moon using at least his 8" and my 12". After everyone had a turn, we located Saturn and spent about the same amount of time looking at Saturn as we did looking at the moon. It took me a while to find Saturn with my scope, and to me it looked out of focus but others assured me that it was clear. It turned out that I had my eye too close to the EP.
Gil pointed at the Southern Cross and the Double Star in one of the pointer stars but I couldn't find them with my scope, so the participants had to rely on Gil's scope.
After a while, Gil decided to wind the viewing side of the activities up and go inside for a cupper. Inside Gil showed us some astronomy books of his. He also showed us some pictures on his computer that shows the size relation of the planets in our Solar System, then the size relation of some of the stars including our own Sun.
On the social side, I met up with a bloke that used to live 3 miles from me when I lived at Toolondo when I was a kid back in the 1960's. He used to be friends with my older brother. I also met (for the first time) an IIS member Peter (cosmicap) and his wife Kaye.
I think what I got out of the night was to learn the constellations and what stars make them up.
I hope you were able to understand my ramblings. I'm not the best report writer.
OK Peter (cosmicap)! I've given my report of the night. Now I and other ISS member want to hear your report of the night.
