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[Skylook123]

This past Saturday was our club's annual support of comet hunter, Astronomy columnist, and Parade Magazine science editor Dr. David Levy's fund raiser on the UofA Mall to support his astronomy education foundation, Sharing the Sky. We start up around 3 PM, and go until around 9:30 PM in the center of the University of Arizona campus, in front of the Flandrau Planetarium. I'm not sure how many of us were present, but during the daylight I counted about 18 telescopes plus our Night Sky Network setup and meteor display (175 pounder!) I'm guessing at least 30 more club members plus the UofA chapter of SEDS, the Students For the Exploration and Development of Space.

I usually have a 10" SCT for this event, as with most of my half dozen or so public events each month. However, this time I had my 18" Teeter in the truck from a previous event and too much work overtime had me short of time to swap out the scopes, so I went with the big guy.

I showed up about 2:45 so I could set up a canopy for Terri Lapin's and my wife Susan's NSN demonstrations. Then came the dust devil. It lifted the canopy and two 55 pound ramps tied to the legs, and destroyed two legs and four or five cross braces. Sorry, no shade today. It also broke the glass on Al Anzaldua's large asteroid and meteor impact crater poster but did not damage the poster itself.

I was using a 60mm Lunt THa for the solar, and, on a whim, set the Teeter on the Moon on the opposite horizon. From around 3:30 PM until after 9:30 PM I had a constant crowd, with a gorgeous view of the terminator on the Moon and a strong prominence and sunspot group on the sun causing lots of oohs and aahs. There were literally too many people in line to get off the moon, so we had a lot of interesting discussions about the effects of the terminator on the contrast, all the lava and impacts, relative size, the incredible shrinking moom, and the gradual expansion of the lunar orbit; all those neat factoids. However, it was getting to be more than a two step climb as the night went on. Never got to see the flag, rover tracks, or missing Tang bottle. Maybe next lunation.

I hit Jupiter for a while, but it was too low for comfortable use with the big dob and the glare was quite bright. So, I went over to Mizar and we had a great remainder of the evening. We talked about the Navajo concept of the Revolving Male (Big Dipper), Revolving Female (Cassiopeia), and Polaris symbolizing the family unit and home fire; no matter where they go around the sky, the family is still the core focus. We talked about the legendary vision test with Mizar and Alcor, then, in the eyepiece, glimpsed the multiple stars of Mizar and the pretty blue companion off to the side. That introduced color and star temperature lessons, and how our sun is average in most ways except that it is alone. We occasionally strayed into the use of the Arcturus to Alkaid line as The Rudder, for Bootes to herd the bears around and make sure that the sun would be in Virgo for harvest season. And, occasionally the Big Dipper as the Ursa Major Moving Cluster came about. We also occasionally explored the color/size/temperature discussion on Orion with Betelgeuse and Rigel.

During one of my clusters of folks listening to the Navajo constellation concepts, a young woman introduced herself as a Mohawk, and said she had never heard another tribe's consideration of the Dipper and that there were similarities in her culture as well. She seemed to think we were pretty cool dudes and dudettes to be aware of other cultures' integration of sky and life.

I never got his name, but someone had a microphone and recorder on the ground for what seemed to be an hour of my ramblings and then interviewed me for some media presentation. I had about 20 people in line, so I never clarified what was happening but he was very interested in how we bring the remote sky down to the lives of the visitors.

Based on my usual counting and attendance algorithm from the Grand Canyon, I stopped physical counting at over 350 visitors early; from the time I set the big scope on the Moon around 4:30, I always had a line at the scope. At 2 visitors average per minute, I was approaching 500 or more total by the end, about the same as a Grand Canyon Star Party afternoon and night. SO many people were grateful for our providing this opportunity. In the future, though, it'll be back to the SCT; my legs don't need that much Stairmaster workout! A coworker who happens to be Navajo and who has just gotten custody of her 8 year old nephew stopped by, and they finalized plans earlier this week for our club to do a Saturday daytime event with the Raytheon American Indian Network. She has been a bit of my inspiration to learn more of the Navajo sky, and she said today that her nephew has not stopped talking about all of us showing so much to the public. He will likely pick up an 8" tube dob in a few weeks; he's incredibly sharp, super kid, so I'm hoping we get a Sky Puppy here (our club has a special program of education for pre-teens called the Sky Puppies).

Awesome night!

[skybsd]

Hi Jim,
What an enjoyable read..,

Sounds like it was a fantastic and rewarding time on multiple levels. Please do continue to let us know of future events!

Thanks!

Regards,

skybsd

[Skylook123]

Thanks! We have two more next weekend. Saturday during the day I, and possibly a couple of more folks, will do solar/daytime planet demonstrations and possibly more of the Night Sky Network kits with a Native American social group. Then on Saturday night will be our big Catalina State Park Star Night. That one is always a favorite of mine, because they've asked that I kick it off each night with a walk around the sky. Always effective to put the sky in context along with the eye candy in each of our dozen or more telescopes. The next night, Sunday, will be our regular ten telescope session with University of Arizona astronomy class students. These are studens in the Astronomy for non-astronomy majors, so it's an amusing night. Dr. Fleming, the lead professor, has them take a quiz on site; they need to identify five constellations and five bright stars to get credit for attending. It usually takes us four or five nights throughout the semester to get all 500-600 students out with us.

My eyesight is so poor and I've been doing this so long, my goals have changed to re-seeing old sky friends through new viewers' eyes. I think any of us who has ever done these outreaches has stories of the intense reactions of a visitor's first look at Saturn, Jupiter, or the Moon. One of my favorite memories of all time was of a young Japanese girl at the Grand Canyon Star Party seven years ago who did not speak English but who kept insisting, at dusk, "Diamond Star". Her companions pointed out that she meant Vega, up in the east. I was already set on The Ring, so it was an easy shift. She climbed a step up on the ladder, looked for a long time, and went away with profuse thanks and in tears and I noticed for the first time that she had one hand grasping the stone on an engagement ring on her finger. Her companions told me that just that morning, she had received her engagement ring from her fiance who then had to make an emergency trip home to Japan a few hours before. Her diamond in the sky. You just never know what one life you'll touch.