I wanna go back to college! What a fun night of observing we had up on the campus of the University of Bufallo with the SEDS Club-"Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (http://www.ubseds.org). Although under the immense glow of university lighting we had a spectacular view of a rising full moon over the campus, Saturn which always gets them excited, gamma leonis, M35 and a few others. We had 5 scopes on hand for the students. In addition to the SEDS members quite a few students passing by feasted on some of our celestial wonders that were on stage for the evening. We had a great group of energetic and enthusiastic college kids.
Thanks to Mike Israel, Gary Flagg, Frank Pirrone, Dan Marcus, Mark Percy, Carl Milazzo, Jim Lehman, and Pat Lannon for their assistance. All I believe are trying to get in for the Fall semester.
Thanks to our gracious UB student hosts Brad Cheetham, Matt Cannella, Salman Iqbal, Dan Pastuf, Colton Steiner, Andre Steiner, and others.
We are looking forward to helping them out again with some of their events on and off campus .
Definitely makes you want to go back to college. Hope I get accepted for Fall '09 semester. Go Bulls!
Hi Mike - what a fun event. Nice turn out of various telescopes and enthusiastic astronomers to man them! I would love to see gamma leonis in your tv 101! Thanks for posting the pics, always fun to see people excited and thrilled about the sky.
ReplyDeleteYour event has inspired and motivated me.......for sometime now I have been wanting to take my little astronomy side show up to our community college and do some programs on the "quad". The school is up in the foothills north of Reno with plenty of sky in reach due to low building structure and moderate lighting. Maybe a 4 day Moon with Saturn as a sidedish?
Maybe this is strange and I do not know if you experience this but sometimes I have to overcome a certain amount of fear before I do a program or go to a new place. One of my goals is to meet people with my program in unexpected places........I will have to deal with this at the campus, but the response could be really awesome too. I know the first time I did the movie theater I had major butterflies till I had some visitors and got into a flow.
I've definitely felt that way.I give you a tremendous amount of credit doing your outreach programs by yourself. I've only done it one time solo and it felt quite awkward and I felt initially like I was some wacky street performer(nothing against street performers). Like you said it passed quickly once people started to come to the scope. Its definitely much easier with a partner or two which has been the case.So you have my total admiration for doing it yourself.
ReplyDeleteI've always liked the idea of showing up in unexpected places-- which we havent really done other than one location. The idea is what really was the onus behind the name of my blog. I think you could really get some press if you were known for just showing up at some corner, store, venue unexpectedly with some telescopes. It would be great fun an you meet quite an eclectic group of people.
Nice photos of people enjoying the views!!!!!!
ReplyDeletebetcha their minds were blown!
Thanks NSG. They were as they put it- "Pumped". We plan on doing more events with the students both on and off campus. Hope your enjoying the 12" Dob
ReplyDelete