Wednesday, my wife and I ran the first "Space Night" at my son's primary school in Kikuyu, Kenya. 30 families RSVPed, and I hoped to show first the Moon and then Jupiter before they set; then, for those stying longer, Orion Nebula. We had kept the event free because we wanted to make it as accessible as possible.
Before we started, my wife would do a little lesson in a classroom with a presentation about the telescope, how to use it, and a pre-recorded screencast using Stellarium to preview what we'd see. She also included a little quiz about planet sizes (Earth, Jupiter and Neptune) and distances from the sun, if we consider a model with the sun being of 1m diameter.
To show Jupiter without too much hassle, I had brought my tracking EQ mount, instead of the manual table-top that the 150p comes with. Additionally, I had set up 10x50 binos on a tripod for people to also view the Moon through it to compare, and also to show what one of the most affordable ways to get into the hobby looks like -- 10x50s and tripods are available locally quite easily, while most telescopes need to be imported, at usually significantly higher cost than in the West.
Later, once it got dark enough, we would use the binos to view e.g. the Pleiades, while others were looking through the scope at Jupiter.
So far the plan...
In the end, well more than 100 people turned out, because many families brought also all the siblings of the school's students. In this pic, only the first group is shown:
Despite having started early, while it was still dusk, we had to rush quite a bit to at least get everybody to see the Moon. We used a 16mm/82° eye piece for that.
The time-challenge was compounded by kids running across the field where we had connected several power extensions to the mount, often tripping over a cable and disconnecting the mount. Which meant reconnecting the cable, waiting for the mount's WiFI Dongle to come online again, reconnecting my phone, restarting tracking, possibly re-centering the Moon. This process to maybe 0.5-1 minute each time, and it happened probably 20 times or so.
Once we were through with that at around 8pm, most people had already left (small kids on a weekday...)
However, about 10-15 families still got some views of Jupiter, having added a 3x Barlow to the 16mm, and some people could still view the Pleiades through the binos.
And I have to say, despite all the stress caused by the big numbers and the frequent disconnects, the experience was exhilarating! Especially hearing some kids, being so amazed to see the Moon so clearly, with craters and mountains, shouting out avidly.
Some take-aways for next time:
- The lesson was very well-received, especially the quiz whose answers were very surprising to most.
- We should limit the number of people and requiring families to RSVP for all members.
- Ensure beforehand that a long-enough single power extension is provided and is properly secured!
- Also instead of inviting the whole school, probably do it by class, so that the "main attendees", the school kids, are of similar age and knowledge, and adjust the lesson and viewed objects accordingly.
- Possibly work with others to bring more telescopes.
- I had brought some led string lights to delimit the telescope area which would be off-limits except for the ones currently viewing. Next time bring red and dimmable ones for later, should we actually manage to look at DSOs.
