Article by ASKC President Rick Henderson, which appeared in the November, 2010 issue of the Cosmic Messenger (club newsletter). ASKC members having fun while bringing the wonders of the Night Sky to Zoo attendees.
On Sept. 30th, the Kansas City Zoo held a special free, evening event with the theme of Awesome Astronomy. So, of course, who 'ya gonna call? Star busters! Unless, of course, they don't answer the phone and then you call the Astronomical Society of Kansas City.
The zoo staffers set up exhibits on light, magnets, the moon, the planets and more inside the main exhibit hall and theater building. David Young also blended in (more or less) with the zoo staffers with his wonderful collection of meteorites. Then he foolishly let Rick Henderson try to figure out how to align his 14-inch Starmaster. Mike Sterling to the rescue! After Mike helped Rick get the 14-inch under control, he got to get his own 16-inch Starmaster aligned and ready to go for the public.
In addition to David, Mike and Rick, John Benz brought his deep sky binoculars, Win Gregg also brought binoculars and Steve King brought his 10-inch Dobsonian. David Brackey and Jay Manifold were also on hand to help. Rick set up the "Trip to the Lights
Fantastic" DVD program, a 20-minute video highlighting astrophotography by Dave Dembinski and Tom Martinez, to run continuously in the main theater.
Then, over the course of the next two hours, our intrepid ASKC volunteers hosted 677 visitors! Even the zoo's education director, Debra Ryder, was amazed at the head count considering the previous month's evening free event attracted barely over 100 visitors.
The visitors were treated to views of Venus, Jupiter (the big winner this year), M57, M13, Uranus, Neptune and, of course, the night sky scene-stealing moon when it came up. Fortunately, this time we had at least one variable polarizing filter so everyone didn't go blind in one eye.
The evening was somewhat bittersweet, as it marked the last event that the zoo's family-event coordinator Bryan Mosley helped organize and participate in. Bryan, who has worked with the ASKC on practically every event that we have done over the last four years at the zoo, is leaving Kansas City to get married and move to northern California with his new bride. Wine, woman and
song — all that's missing is the song! We wish him well, as he was a very good partner in these events.
Many thanks also go to the ASKC members who helped out with such a big crowd. The Kansas City Zoo is always a fun place to do astronomy and this time provided an "astronomical" visitor turnout for us to show our community why it's a good idea to look up at the night sky!
|
|
