Sharing the sky with others

[rastis95 (Scott)]

Hi all,
I thought I would quickly share my experiences with sharing the night sky with some local scouts last night.

I was asked if myself and a couple of other local telescope enthusiasts would be willing to give a small talk to the local scout group of children around the age of 12 to 14. I thought this would be a great way to get the children interested in the night sky and to share some knolwdge that ive learned. So last night we set up a 12" and a 10" dob, and with the aid of a laser pointer we started pointing out the constellations and points of interest that we could see.

I wasn't too sure if the kids would like what they saw but that was quickly put to rest with comments of oh wow and is that real. To see children of this age so interested and eager to learn was very rewarding and we happily stayed there and answered there questions and kept pointing the dobs at different objects for over an hour.

Its always rewarding to point your scope up at the night sky but having some extra people along makes all the difference.

Keep looking up
Cheers
Scott

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Thanks for sharing that Scott, sounds like it was a good night
I've been fortunate to help out with a couple of similar public viewing nights and the "oh wow" moments are pretty special.

[iceman (Mike)]

Well done Scott.

I'm planning to do a similar night with my daughters brownie's group, but the weather has conspired against us for the last month.

Hopefully soon!

[BerrieK]

Scott, sounds like a great experience for all young and old (er). A while ago I had similar 'oh wow' joys when we had a few of my 10 year old daughter's friends over for a sleepover and we took the scope outside. Another commonly heard reaction was 'oooh, that's mad!'. It really is a joy to share the sky in real time with youngsters and observe their reactions of amazement isnt it.

Kerrie