[AZ-Observing] Hour of Darkness from Science Center

The "Hour of Darkness" event at the Science Center turned out to be  
fun, albeit not exactly for the reasons we might have predicted. The  
"Hour of Darkness" itself turned out to be nearly peripheral to the  
night's activities, due to the inexplicable failure to turn off any of  
the local lights in the plaza where we were set up. The bright  
lighting all around us completely overwhelmed any good effects from  
the darkened buildings.

Nevertheless, we did a good job of entertaining, and perhaps  
enlightening, the few hundred people who showed up. Under the  
circumstances, the most popular target by far was Saturn, though  
people could also glimpse other subjects such as Sirius, Polaris,  
Mars, and M42. I stayed on Saturn the whole time, though about 2/3 of  
the people who looked reacted by saying it looked fake. In a good way,  
of course. I asked one woman how it would have to look in order not to  
look fake, and she had no answer. Many people said it looked like a  
picture. I pointed out that the goal of most pictures is to make  
something that closely resembles the real thing. So it's better to say  
that a picture looks like Saturn.

One colorful aspect of the evening was that we shared the Science  
Center with a high school prom. Many ebullient and lavishly clad  
teenagers streamed by, along with a few adult chaperones. A select  
number of each group took advantage of our presence to augment their  
high school science education by looking at Saturn. It looked fake!

Tom Polakis took a bunch of pictures and also collected Sky Quality  
data. Jenn manned her telescope and attempted to conduct a cute  
experiment where people would count how many Pleiades they could see  
before and after the lights went out. Unfortunately, the local lights  
rendered this effort nugatory. A number of other stalwart amateurs  
were on hand to lend their eyepieces to the occasion.

Speaking of eyepieces, mine got so smeared by PFDs (Public Facial  
Deposits) that I was obliged to clear it twice by wiping the eye lens  
with my thumb. It cleaned up perfectly when I got it back home.


Joe Bergeron (Temporary Arizonan)

Fellow, International Association of Astronomical Artists

http://www.joebergeron.com



--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please 
send personal replies to the author, not the list.

Other related posts: