[AZ-Observing] Lights Out Flagstaff
- From: Brian Skiff <bas@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <amastro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2015 00:35:21 -0700
We had our "Lights Out Flagstaff" event last night
and tonight:
http://www.lightsoutflagstaff.org
There were something like 1000 people in the
large public square downtown last night, and a fair
crowd on Mars Hill. The local astronomy club and some
Lowell educators were downtown for that. Tonight we
attracted something over 800 visitors to Mars Hill
in the evening, much more than we're really able
to handle. Luckily the astronomy club held their
monthly meeting here tonight, too, so some of them
helped out again with their own telescopes.
Plenty to see, naturally, with the Moon, Venus,
Mars, and Jupiter, the winter stars still high in
the west, and clusters and nebulae.
Since it was cloud-free both evenings, I was asked
to give my "famous" sunset/Earth-shadow presentation,
this evening to something like 100 people, then felt
compelled to stay outside to help the overwhelmed tour staff,
and talked to people until well after our 10pm closing
time. The crowd was drawn by free admission to the
observatory, so the main parking lot, overflow area,
and staff parking areas were full an hour before sunset ---
and stayed that way until 10pm. Even though we set
another record high temperature for the date today
(70F = 21C), there were lots of Phoenicians and
Las Vegas-ans shivering while standing in line for
the telescopes (the very dry air and high altitude meant
the temperature dropped very quickly to the mid-50s = 12C).
Pretty good-natured crowd altogether ("a good time was
had by all" I'm supposed to say here), and there were
a few smart young kids to talk to, notably a
remarkably articulate 6-year-old girl, and another
particularly well-informed one ("science camp..." she
confessed to me in a whisper).
Sue French has confirmed my impression that
at such events the grown-up women tend to be more
appreciative of the sky and the views than the guys ---
or at least by saying so. We had one guy during
the twilight sequence tonight that was fascinated by
how suddenly the thin sliver of the Earth-shadow
appeared on the horizon, but mostly it was women who
were wowed by the progression of the long shadows,
the heiligenschein on the distant trees, and the layered
colors in the Earth-shadow.
\Brian
--
See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and please
send personal replies to the author, not the list.
Other related posts:
