Went to Sky Meadows State park last night, about 40 mins away, to an event called 'Astronomy For Everyone'. In fact there was another Cub Scout group there too. Was an excellent night. Clear skies and large telescopes. I can now say I have seen the milky way. Now I wonder how many times I've seen it before and thought it was a cloud. We saw globular clusters, andromeda galaxy, jupiter, binary stars.. The giant telecope was a monster 20 incher that you needed a ladder to use. Spencer, my Wolf cub, let out a huge WOW when he looked through it, and the guy running it immediately told Spence that Spence can look as long as he wants. I bet the owner of that scope lives for those moments of sharing his love of astronomy with others.
Anyway, you know those laser pointers that teachers can use to point at a black board? These are the same pointers that kids have pointed at airplanes and got in trouble for doing. Turns out that you can see the beam pretty well at night when pointed skyward, and all the astronomers were using these pointers as they described star names and constellations. If you are standing right next to him it is very easy to see what he is pointing at, by following the beam. Not so easy when you are farther away, turned around or whatnot.
Was a huge crowd, maybe a hundred people. But then there were at least a dozen LARGE telescopes. Watching Jupiter shimmer due to the atmosphere and then suddenly clear up was interesting. Did I mention there was a powerpoint presentation on the projector screen too? Sort of a what's happin'in in space today lecture. Next month they plan on making a man made crater on the moon! They will be carefully watching the dust cloud and what it is composed of.
Stephanie handed out some forms that detailed what the Cubs can do to earn their Astronmy belt loops, or the Astronomy Pins (if the already have the belt loop) She found the hand outs at www.MeritBadge.com Silly me I thought that site was only for Boy Scouts, not Cub Scouts so hadn't looked at it yet. Good to know.
Ask our Cub scouts how long it takes to drive to the moon, assuming 60 mph. :)
It was quite a nice night! I sure hope there were some Cub Scouts who found it as memorable as I did!
