More "Boardwalk" Astronomy

On Sunday evening I had just returned from a wonderful weekend of Barbershop Harmony, singing songs with members of the Atlantic Harmony Brigade, a group of men who love singing 4-part harmony in the Barbershop style. My lovely wife Tina always supports me in all my crazy hobbies. We had dinner in Hampton beach and then headed back home. Since she had some work to do for the evening, on very little sleep I went out to the boardwalk again at about 8:30 pm.

Tonight was no less thrilling than last week. Many people, some couples, some with kids, stopped by to look at Jupiter and its moons. (Most people said they had seen it in the sky earlier in the evening and most said they had guessed it was Venus.)

Since I only set up the 80mm Zenithstar ED refractor, we saw two equatorial cloud bands and four moons. Unfortunately Io had already emerged from eclipse, but I think next chance I get I will put the electronic EP in and see if I can get a recording on my laptop of some movement of the moons over an hour or so. That would be fun to play back before people look in the binoviewer.

"Boardwalk" Astronomy at Hampton Beach

Sunday evening was warm and clear, Jupiter was rising nicely in fairly stable air and the moon crested the eastern horizon about 9pm. I grabbed the 80mm ED on the AT Voyager AZ mount and the binoviewers and headed down to the Hampton Beach boardwalk. It didn't take long at all before people were clustered around the scope, with good views of the eastern limb of the Moon just beginning to show signs of sunset with some nice craters becoming visible as their interiors fell into shadow. Jupiter showed four moons for a while, then three as one passed behind the planet for a while. An Indian family stayed the longest, maybe 45 minutes, and there were many visitors from Canada, in particular Montreal. People were a little worried that there might be a charge for looking through the scope - I think a sign would be reassuring in the future. "Sidewalk Astronomy - Free" or something like that. There was some discussion about poor Pluto losing its planetary status. One gentleman from Woburn had a scope and had helped design and implement a "walk through the Solar System" path around a lake, with granite monuments imbedded by the path at distances proportional to the scale of the Solar System. It was great when he said that Pluto would remain a planet in his "Solar System" because it was imbedded in 200 pounds of concrete!

"Parking Lot" Astronomy at Ogunquit Playhouse

Tina and I were early for the last night of the "The Producers" last Saturday night up at the Ogunquit playhouse in Maine. It was the first clear night in about two weeks, and there was the first quarter moon..just sitting there..and the WO 80ED with AT Voyager mount was in the car. Well it didn't take long before I had that scope set up, and pretty soon the line to see the moon at 80X through the scope and binoviewer was longer than the line to pick up tickets for the play. I took a moment to show some folks Jupiter and its moons, which was also visible over the awning of the theater, but mostly it was the moon - lots of oohs and aahs, and first quarter moon is perfect for public observing. Just goes to show ya - never go anywhere without your grab-and-go scope!