Saturday, March 28, 2009

3-27-09 A Razor Thin Moon and A Hula Hooping Saturn

With a wonderful 1 day old Moon with incredible Earthshine and a spine tingling Saturnian system to view has the making of a fun night out with the public in spite of the incoming haze and additional turned on area lighting! Whew!

  • With that said this fun group here really made my night! (LtoR) Melissa, Jamie, Caryanne, Mason, and Kyla really got an ear full of astronomy stuff! What did we cover:
Views of Saturn and it's Moons.
Titan and it's unique environment.
Pluto presentation and modeling.
Venus phases and cycles modeling.
Lunar phases and cycles modeling.
Stellar life cycle poster presentation.
Electromagnetic Spectrum poster presentation.
Planet classifications.
The Cosmic Microwave Background.
Big Bang Atlas presentation.
Getting started in Astronomy.
Building a bridge between Astronomy and Faith/Philosophy.

Not only did these guys brave the incoming cool of the evening by huddling together but they listened and were engaged. I HOPE THEIR HEADS ARE NOT SPINNING TO BADLY AFTER THIS AND THEY CAN THAW OUT! Thanks guys for stopping by!

2 comments:

Drive-by Astronomy said...

You are certainly the one man traveling sidewalk astronomy show. Thats quite an impressive nightly agenda of topics. I wanna come to your events. Do you have an opening for an assistant? Great job. We've been very quiet in the public outreach lately here in Buffalo. Next weekend we'll be having the universe on stage at various venues for 100 Hrs. of Astronomy.

Sidewalk Universe said...

You know most of this stuff these folks were exposed to was not planned. But I have on hand resources which as in this case open up discussion and modeling opportunities. It is fun to see things open up with people - a simple view of Saturn turned this into 45 minutes of space science education. I try to have a theme for each outing and that will more times than not be a spring board to other areas of curiosity that my visitors have. I never push it - but I strive to engage at a deeper level than just a look!

I always a need of an assistant - but with your level of experience and passion for outreach we could bill ourselves as the "Flying Astronomy Brothers".

Thanks for the encouragement - I hope you guys have a blast next weekend!