Drive-By parks it at the Buffalo Museum of Science Saturday March 3, 2010

Another impromptu "Astronomy Gig" at the Museum today. As the clouds parted in western NY this morning it prompted a frenzy of activity in the "Drive-By" household as "D-B" scurried to organize and load his gear for both some daytime solar as well as some night time observing from the grounds of the Buffalo Museum of Science.

I arrived about 3 PM and instead of going to the museum rooftop I decided on the front entrance to the museum as our observing stage. A new exhibit, "Sesame Street Presents : The Body:" had just recently opened so I new there would be a "bevy" of younger visitors and their parents who might otherwise not make it all the way up to the rooftop.

Sol did not disappoint the little solar-crazed munchkins nor their parents. "Cory" my 60mm H-alpha went to work as I sat back and let him do his thing. Solar prominence activity was rather quiet at the start but over the next 1-3 hours it exhibited a significant increase in activity with some very nice prominences of approximately 2-3 earth diameters jettisoning off the solar limb into the sun's atmosphere.

 "Some upcoming gigs"

I was overwhelmed by my  solar induced crazed state and inadvertently I broke out into an uncontrolled chorus of "'O Sole Mio" of which the audio was captured on exterior museum security cams:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://popup.lala.com/popup/1873778952181541183&ei=P-2cS_eCBMH48AbJvZGODg&sa=X&oi=music_play_track&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAcQ0wQoADAA&usg=AFQjCNHj4wf0-4YkdW2tf0AXg-MGAX3tzQ

Our Sun, song and dance routine ended around 5:30 so we took a little break and did a little stroll around the museum as well as partake in a non-SUG approved non-Chubby Hubby 2010 approved snack break as you can see below.

Post gooey chocolate circumventing my face and a quick emailed photo of this delectable dessert to the SUGster I  was now ready for my glucose fueled evening of observing with the visiting public. 

In spite of city lights, parking lot and building lights illuminating the entire observing location like a night game at  Bills Stadium, Mr TV101 (with the recent poor attitude) took the stage and  went immediately to work providing views of Venus low in the west (my first viewing for the season), Mars above the rooftop of the museum and it was quite spectacular with its polar ice cap clearly visible as well as M42 putting on a dazzling show even amongst the anthropogenically photon infected night sky.  Nice steady flow of approximately 50 or so visitors partook in their turn at the scope over the following 2 hours.

  

The evening ended around 9 PM but that wasn't good enough for the TV101 and me. We needed some deep sky views of light that traveled the cosmos for hundreds to millions of years. It was off to the Beaver Meadow Observatory to meet friend John Riggs for some dark sky telescopic adventure. And the evening did not disappoint!