Once again, the NWFAA supported Walton Outdoor’s Explore the Outdoors Festival. This year we returned to Live Oak Landing. The trees here limit our location to the same place every year. Luckily, it puts us right on the walking path from parking to all the other outdoor exhibits. This means we get a constant flow of guest observers throughout the event and two chances to offer them a look through our equipment.
Young Miss Kennedy mans our booth early in the event.
Dave Halupowski brought his ever popular binocular chair, Dennis setup his iOptron Maksutov with a white light filter and Tom Haugh setup his Lunt H-alpha refractor. The skies were cloudless and the Sun cleared the trees to our east just before the event opened to the public.
In white light the Sun was very quiet. There were no appreciable sunspots visible and after a couple of hours of explaining what a sunspot would look like (if there was one) Dennis decided to change tactics. His alignment was good enough that he was easily able to find Venus in the daytime sky and for the rest of the event, that was the target in the Mak. The planet was deep in a crescent phase and provided a very ‘teachable’ moment to the public observers.
By now, Dennis targets the daytime crescent Venus.
Thankfully, there was a sizable prominence visible on the Sun’s limb, so there was at least one solar target of interest in the Ha scope. Additionally, there was a couple of minor filaments visible.
Guest observers view the Sun in Hydrogen-Alpha light.
We handed out plenty of club flyers and sky charts and had a great time showing the daytime objects to the crowd. The Explore the Outdoors Festival is one that we all enjoy supporting and we have already been invited back to next years event on Oct 15, 2016. We will be there.