Well, more of a BBQ with work colleagues last Saturday in Manly (Sydney).
A good chance to show everyone the Moon through the ETX 125 and discover some of the the joys and pitfalls of sidewalk astronomy - I'm quite keen on this idea for when I'm a grey nomad, so this was good practice.
There was more interest shown than I'd expected from kids and adults - especially in looking down the wrong end - just part of the entertainment!
"Wow, there are mountains on the Moon?" ... "How big are those craters?" ... "What's the furthest star you can see?" and all the usual questions were expertly handled by yours truly. I'd mugged up on
Astronomy for Dummies and
Volumes 16 to 33 of the Proceedings of the IAU the night before so nothing was a problem.
Everyone wanted to see a planet but of course nothing was around at the time. Some of the fellers seemed to have an inordinate interest in 'seeing Uranus', I can't for the life of me think why, maybe the grog had them confuse it with Saturn.
Just as I'd packed up the gear around 9:30pm a ten-year-old pointed out the Pleiades had just risen above the back fence. He called it the 'Six Sisters' (presumably from the Aboriginal legends taught in school). I had to bribe him to keep quiet about it - I wasn't about to set everything up again!
'Twas all good fun, but I did discover one thing the
Dummies book didn't cover ... how to get sausage grease off the eyepieces.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
The Public Leaning Post
I've been following the weird and wonderful IIS constructions and modifications for a while. As soon as I'd bought the ETX I just had to join the trend.
My first 'dark sky' trip a few months ago to the Mudgee area convinced me I needed something to make observing more comfortable (especially with the wonky back and all
).
Voila! The OLP, or Observer's Leaning Post - just one of those Bunnings timber rollers with the roller removed and a foam-covered bit of ply fixed onto aluminium angle. Very comfortable for looking though the eyepice (of an ETX, at least) and it's adjustable in height. Of course it becomes a 'Public Leaning Post' (PLP) when there's a queue at the 'scope.
