For the past couple of years our January “How to use your new telescope” event has been plagued by bad weather. This year we coordinated with the Emerald Coast Science Center in hosting the event. We piggy-backed on our regular support for the center’s Planetarium Night. We were hoping this year would be more productive. It was.
We had three telescopes brought to the center by the public. This may not seem like much but it is three times the number of participating scopes than we have had in the past. Club members Frank Atchison, Dean Covey, Tom Haugh, Dennis Hausch and Professor Tony Russo supported this event.
One owner brought an older Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain fork mounted scope that he had difficulty setting up and aligning. Professor Russo assisted him. Unfortunately, the firmware in his hand controller appeared to be corrupt. He was advised to contact Meade to see if his system was capable of being re-flashed with new software. His scope was fine; his controller was not.
We had one owner bring a small Newtonian reflector over from Pensacola. She was having problems focusing the scope. The telescope proved to be significantly out of collimation. We had enough tools on hand so that Dennis was able to bring the mirrors back into alignment. We took the scope outside and were able to check the scope out on Jupiter high overhead.
The last telescope was a brand new 60mm refractor brought by the owner and his Dad. He was looking for hints and tips about using the scope. He was given lots of advice and some Astronomy magazines to assist in his Astronomy adventure.
We invited all the participants to come to one of our meetings or to one of our public star gazes once they start back up in April.