Observing Report for 9/25/2022 (Open Observatory Night)

[jrkirkham]

Recent media hype about Jupiter being closer than anytime in the past 59 years sparked some conversation in my Sunday School class yesterday morning. I invited anyone who wanted over to the observatory last night. We ended up with 16 people ranging in ages from toddler to 80. We had a fun evening. I got to answer a lot of questions. Since there were so many people we couldn't get through many targets, but everyone had a good time. Highlights for the night included:

Saturn at 280x
Neptune at 225x and 560x
Jupiter at 70x and 280x
Andromeda at 70x
The constellations of the night sky highlighted with my green laser pointer
and a Starlink constellation (only one person there had seen one before)

[Bigzmey]

Nice outreach Rob!

[John Baars]

Always nice to have a highly motivated audience. Good work, well done!

[jrkirkham]

A QUICK UPDATE:

I had three more visitors at my observatory later in the week. Two of them came to practice their night photography. The third came a couple of nights to learn how to use his telescope to take some basic pictures. All in all my observatory hosted 19 guests this week.

[Makuser]

Hi Rob. A superlative observing report from you. I am glad that you had this opportunity to provide a fun and informative outreach session for many folks. Three beautiful planet views and the Andromeda Galaxy were excellent targets as well as later providing help on astrophotography. Thanks for your well written report Rob and keep up the great work.

[jrkirkham]

It seems as if people like to view the planets. Yesterday someone asked if his visiting children and grandchildren could come on Friday during the Thanksgiving holiday. I put the observatory up for my use in retirement. I live in a small town of about 3,000 people in a small county of only about 6,000 people. I guess word gets around.