Apr 292016
The NWFAA was once again glad to lend our support to Walton County’s Earth Day Festival held at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. Dave Halupowski and his granddaughter Kennedy were the first to show up. Dave brought a set of binoculars mounted on a parallelogram equipped tripod. Needless to say, the binos were a big hit with the kids and bird watchers that attended the festival. Tom Haugh and Dennis Hausch brought the necessary equipment to safely view Earth’s nearest star; the Sun.
Dave and guest observer discuss his binocular mount.
The steady stream of visitors were able to view a moderately sized solo sunspot in Dennis’ white light filtered Mak-Cass and a small prominence in Tom’s H-alpha scope. We handed out plenty of star gaze handouts and made sure that everyone was aware of our regularly scheduled star gaze at the same spot one week hence. If everyone shows who said they would, we will have a great turnout on the 30th.
Both solar telescopes in use.