NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

The Edge Elementary School observatory tour and star gaze was a mixture of good and bad.  The weather did not cooperate at all, but the tour went on anyway.  In fact, we had too many guest observers to handle all at one time.  All counted, students, parents and teachers came to about 75 guest observers.  The classroom is not that big and the dome is smaller than that.  So, we had to split our guests into three different groups.  This would have been perfect had the skies been clear. 

As it was, Prof. Tony R. took one group up into the dome.  He demonstrated the telescope and equipment and explained the procedures used to record the imagery that the observatory uses for its research projects. 

In the classroom, Tom H. and Frank A. presented a slide show on the history of the observatory and an introduction to astronomy using club members photography. 

That left one group waiting for shift change.  If the skies had been clear, they would have been the group outside observing.  With as young as some of the students were, the wait became too much and a few of the families left early. 

Although, we received a lot of positive feedback, the families that left early definitely got shorted.  We will obviously have to enforce a head count in the future so that  no one leaves disappointed.

Eglin Elementary School’s astronomy night started off much earlier in the day with Tom H. giving two classroom presentations to 3rd and 4th grade students.  Along with some basic astronomy highlighting the evenings visible objects, he presented some of the club member’s imagery, a telescope display and provided free March star charts to be used for the evening’s event.

The three ...... astronomers troubleshoot a balky Azimuth drive.

Later that day Tom , Frank A. and Bill B. set up scopes across the street from the school.  The skies cleared once a single large cloud passed and the assembled students, parents and teachers were treated to a grand view of the Jupiter – Venus conjunction. 

On the other side of the sky Mars was plainly visible.  Other objects viewed were the Pleiades and the Great Nebula in Orion.  One parent had brought along a newly acquired telescope and after a quick lesson on scope/finder alignment joined in the action providing an additional view of the evening’s sights. 

Right as the evening wound down, Frank was able to take a quick image of the Orion Nebula through his Meade 8″.

 We would like to thank Eglin Elementary School teachers for the invitation and the rest of the school staff for their warm welcome and support so we could share our passion for the night sky with their students. 

And finally, we would like to thank one of the base’s security teams for their role in making the star gaze safe for all of us.  We were especially glad that they were able to stop by later during their evening rounds so we could give them a quick view of what the students were looking at.  Thank you guys.

Several members of the NWFAA spent Sunday the 29th up at the EAAA’s Munson observing  site.  They cleared a summer’s worth of growth from around the permanent telescope piers. 

The Munson site is one of the panhandle’s darkest skies and is well inside an hours drive from the NWFAA’s theatre of operations.

Dave H. wishes to thank Frank A. and Chuck F. for their help.

There were no reports of injury.