I hope everyone has a great time this weekend and that you have clear skies and huge crowds. I've heard of great events that are being planeed - some huge and some not so huge.
What is really impressive is that many people have incorporated ISAN into their schedules and somehow made it work. For example, Katy Haughland has to work that night for the Natural History Museum, she does student sleep-overs at the La Brea Tar Pits and that is a work night for her. She has altered the program to include observing so that she and the students can take part in ISAN.
I have taken a lesson from her and added several events for GAM at my work, so that I can easily go out and do a couple of hours several nights.
I can't wait to see what everyone else does.
Clear Skies!
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NHAS members in the Seacoast of New Hampshire, and one from central NH, celebrated International Sidewalk Astronomy Night March 20 with a Skywatch in Portsmouth’s Market Square. Herb Bubert, Jim Moe, Tim Mauro and Tom Cocchiaro were mobbed by hundreds of curious onlookers as they set up scopes just outside the front door of Breaking New Grounds and RiRa’s Irish Pub around 7:45 p.m. Warm temperatures and Spring fever drew larger-than-normal crowds of people to the downtown for a Spring Equinox eve of fun and partying—in fact, even at 9 p.m. there was narry a parking space in the downtown or the parking garage. And many of those visitors stopped by to ask if there was anything special going on in the sky.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Clear Sky Clock didn’t look encouraging, the skies cleared enough for long views of the Moon and Pleiades as they courted one another through the sky. The team also gave long lines of the curious glimpses of Mars, Saturn, the Orion Nebula, M35 and the Perseus Double Cluster—despite the glaring flood lights trained on the white steeple of the Old North Church and dozens of gaslight-style street lights.
Saturn proved to be the star (planet) of the show as it rose over RiRa’s Romanesque stone gable around 10 p.m. Many of the folks waiting in long lines at the popular downtown pub ran over to get a glimpse of Saturn and then switched places with friends so they could get a chance to spy the ringed beauty. Comments ranged from, “no way, you taped a stencil to the front of the telescope,” to “oh my God, oh my God” and well…how can you quote speechlessness. Many who had never seen the moon through a telescope before were mesmerized and had to be peeled away by hungry parents headed for a restaurant meal and friends who wanted their chance at the eye piece. Many came back again and again for views through the four scopes, which oddly enough, represented nearly every type on the market—a refractor, dobsonian, schmidt cassegrain and a maksutov. And a few expressed their sincere appreciation to our group for coming out and sharing the heavens with the public, and an interest in making contributions to the cause.
While it may be normal for members observing at a dark-sky site to stay through the wee hours of the morning, few Skywatch-style events make it past 10 p.m. But that wasn’t the way it went for the members of the Portsmouth ISAN group who didn’t leave Market Square until well past 12 bongs on the North Church clock tower—a testament to the interest of Seacoast citizens in the wonders of the universe.