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Skylook123
Postmaster
Reged: 04/30/05
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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High Volume, High Quality Outreach
#4665405 - 06/29/11 05:41 PM
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We just finished a great eight day and night session of public outreach at the Grand Canyon National Park. For pictures and discussion of the South Rim experience, please check in on this thread:
2011 Grand Canyon Star Party
This year marked a significant increase in daytime solar and planetary visitor outreach around the park, with several astronomers contacting over 500 visitors each, per day. Also, the night talks, thanks to the use of a new theater, were attended by close to 300 visitors each night.
Out at the scopes, we surpassed 100 registered astronomers for the week, averaging about 52 each night, with most of the astronomers registering about 225 visitors at each scope. Polling of the visitors shows that a typical visitor looked through 9 scopes per night. Here is one night's time lapse, over 500 visitors and 55 astronomers, taken by the coordinator of GCSP for 18 years, Dean Ketelsen:
June 20 GCSP TIme Lapse by Dean Ketelsen
All day, all around the park when I didn't have my own solar setup, I was getting thanks from park visitors for awakening their interest in the night sky. And the National Park Service, and the Grand Canyon Association, is providing essential support to get this done.
National Park Service GCSP Site
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clchildress
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/22/10
Loc: NW Georgia, USA
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: Skylook123]
#4667356 - 06/30/11 07:08 PM
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That is simply *astounding* outreach work. Must have taken fantastic coordination and planning. Outreach is probably the most important thing an amateur astronomer can do for the future of the hobby, and the future of the science. It's really uplifting to hear about this kind of success. Thank you so much for sharing and I hope everyone involved came away with a great feeling of success.
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Skylook123
Postmaster
Reged: 04/30/05
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: clchildress]
#4668904 - 07/01/11 05:46 PM
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Thanks, Chris. GCSP, in its current form, has been around for 21 years. It has really grown to be centered on service to the visitors. Some years ago, 16 Southwestern parks in the National Park Service formed a consortium to get serious about environmental outreach and education. Each park does it according to their own circumstances, such as Bryce with providing cabins for several week stays for volunteer astronomers and GCSP with an intense 8 night effort.
It's of course not all altruistic, since the environmental awareness raises sensitivity to all manner of effects of encroachment on the National Park boundaries. But, for our part, the encouragement from the NPS is to teach, and push the use of the skies for what we can see, how we can continue our culture, how we can help our own vision at night, and how we need to reduce the impact on the ecology. And, so future generations can have access to what we have.
Of the 100 or so astronomers we had this year, I work closely through the year with about 20, doing a half dozen or more public outreaches each month. In Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, we take this stuff pretty seriously! For myself, it's like seeing the eyecandy all over again through new eyes, and, frankly, you never know what one life you'll touch.
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calibos
Carpal Tunnel
Reged: 11/18/07
Loc: Ireland
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: Skylook123]
#4669316 - 07/01/11 11:36 PM
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I know you guys in the states were famous for Mass Production of Auto's but you're pretty good at Mass Introduction to Astro too!! 
Kudos!
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Skylook123
Postmaster
Reged: 04/30/05
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: calibos]
#4694483 - 07/15/11 06:48 PM
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Our National Park Service point of contact for the Grand Canyon Star Party, Interpretive Ranger Marker Marshall, has completed the initial analysis of our metrics for the week.
• Total night and day contacts reported by astronomers: 51,363 (vs. 42,635 in 2010);
43,697 during the night and 7,666 during the day
• Estimated total nighttime attendance (at 8 scopes each): 6,015 (vs. 4618 in 2010); plus
5,111 by day (at an estimated 1.5 scopes each, vs. 4,055 in 2010).
• Total slide show attendance: 2,285 (up 58% from 1,445 in 2010
• Constellation Tour attendance (new this year) was 314. Next year hopefully we can have
those at 9, 9:30 & 10 each night.
• 109 registered volunteer astronomers reported 1,976 volunteer hours with 35-51 scopes
set up each night.
Also from Marker Marshall's thank you note:
"Favorite comments this year:
• Mary Turner heard a kid saying 'This has been the best night of my life!'
• A Visitor Comment form came in <to the National Park Service Headquarters> calling the sight of the supernova in the Whirlpool galaxy
'life-changing,' and
• Jim O’Connor <me, Skylook123> received this great note from a visitor:
“We just returned from a trip to Arizona, and while there, visited The Grand Canyon. We were
lucky enough to end up there during your Star Party Week. After hearing my three girls (14, 17
& 19) talk about this for days, I decided to hunt down some sort of contact info just so I could
express our gratitude to your group for such a wonderful opportunity.
After seeing Saturn, my 14 year old said " I can cross that off my bucket list now ". All three
have been telling their friends all about this and I'm sure will remember this trip always
because of this one night.
On our first night back to our friend's house in Phoenix, we all reclined on the pool chairs and I
heard "there's Vega… I see the North Star.... I see The Scorpion…. Saturn is over there...etc."
Please extend a Thank you to your volunteers from the Smith Family, Bowling Green,
Kentucky.' "
Makes it all worth while!
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Astrosetz
professor emeritus
Reged: 10/05/03
Loc: Wisconsin
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: Skylook123]
#4694803 - 07/15/11 11:30 PM
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Fantastic!
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GatorStarGazer
sage
Reged: 05/26/09
Loc: Schertz, TX
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: Astrosetz]
#4695969 - 07/16/11 06:21 PM
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Great job Jim! You guys really have your act together to put on an event of that size. The best part is exposing the public to the wonders of our night sky. Imagine all the people you've touched over the years. I've really enjoyed the star parties our astronomy group puts on at the state park. My favorite comment from one young lady, perhaps six years old, was "it's beautiful" when first shown M13. She quietly whispered the words while looking through the eyepiece. That made it all worthwhile for me.
Cheers...Eric
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Skylook123
Postmaster
Reged: 04/30/05
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: GatorStarGazer]
#4696131 - 07/16/11 08:00 PM
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Thanks Eric; I get to stir the pot; the meat and potatoes come from our fantastic volunteers.
Aren't those moments incredible? I must have a dozen of those kind of visitor awakenings each year; some so profound I have trouble getting the grin off my face and getting to sleep that night. My new favorite happened on our sixth night. I did very little scope stuff this year, leaving that part to my 17 and 14 year old granddaughters who were marvelous with the public, while I stood in the dark and listened, and grinned. When the 14 year old was showing the Ring and telling the planetary nebula story with my 18" to her crowd, I went down to the end of the line of 15 or so visitors waiting for their looks. There were four or five kids around six years old or less waiting. So I simplified the Planetary Nebula story a bit for them, talking about the end of life of an average star being like sneezes, scattering material across the Universe, so we are all star stuff. Eyes got wide, of course. Then, spur of the moment, I asked a six year old if he wanted to touch a star? He nodded shyly, so I had him reach his hand up and grab some air. I told him now he was holding something that used to be in a star. Big eyes, again. And he stared at his fist for about 20 seconds, and then openned it up and gently tossed it in the air like a butterfly! Worth the trip.
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LandSailor
member
Reged: 08/15/09
Loc: Las Vegas, NV
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: Skylook123]
#4706744 - 07/22/11 01:23 PM
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Jim,
Email sent about participating next year!
Jason
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Skylook123
Postmaster
Reged: 04/30/05
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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Re: High Volume, High Quality Outreach
[Re: LandSailor]
#4706862 - 07/22/11 02:09 PM
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Jim,
Email sent about participating next year!
Jason
Got it, Jason. Thanks! I'll review my emails, but you just might be the first for next year. I'll reply formally to your email this weekend.
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