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.
