We reached out to the Winnona Park Elementary School for their “Night under the Stars” with in classroom presentations and Night Sky viewing. This was a great event with a great number of real smart students. Thanks to Mrs. Hamby and Mrs Horne for inviting us and Ms. Peavey in letting us use her room and assisting during the 4 presentations and the other teachers and great parents who helped us on the football field for the observing. A great event with great students and parents. We hope they come out to Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center and visit us during our observing sessions and/or meetings! click here for some pictures.
Theo

We are going tonight to reach out to the students from Winnona Park Elementary School in Atlanta. It will start at 6:00 P.M. with some hands-on presentations and than observing the moon and Jupiter.

We had our monthly meeting last Saturday and we welcomed our guests from the Atlanta Outdoor Club who stayed not only for the meeting but also came to observe at the field after dark. The Georgia Perimeter College Students were back again, this time so see much more than the first time they came. In addition we saw some new faces which might become new members! Over all we had about 60 attendees at the meeting and the session at the field. Great turnout and most of us saw a few meteors shooting through the sky.
Please see our Past Events section for more details.
Thanks for coming.
Theo Ramakers

About 200 students and family members attended Memorial Middle “Space Night” and we thank Mrs. Peters for letting us participate. The cloud forecast at 4:00 P.M. was bad, so we did not take any scopes to the event, but we let the students build a telescope on a table. Everyone could look throught he scope they build by looking at the articficial moon and a star (Large Flashlight). We also showed them what goes on in NASA’s control rooms when important milestones are reached in missions. We showed them our short movie “The Phoenix has landed” Since many students registered with NASA to have their name taken to Mars by the “Mars space Laboratory”, we also showed them a short movie about this new Mars Rover. Thanks to Frank and Theo to offer their time for this event. Click here for some pictures of the presentations

Hopewell Middle School was the lucky receipient of some 8″ Newtonian Scopes donated by Andy Lunt from Lunt Solar Scopes. Stephen Ramsden’s Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project did the assignment for Lunt and Stephen called on the Charlie Elliott Chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club for help in giving the students guidance in putting the scopes together. Frank and Theo answered the call. (it took them 2 1/2 hours to drive in the morning rain from Social Circle to Alpharetta) Before they started the assembly in each of the three classes, we did demonstrate the components of telescopes, and how they work to the students, using the tools provided by the Night Sky Network. Than groups of students were assigned tasks and put the scopes together themselves under the watchfull eyes of Frank and Theo. They did a great job and need to be congratulated on a job well done!! Click here for some pictures of the workshop

We’re at the Memorial Middle School in Conyers this Thursday at 6:00 P.M. for the 6th grade “Space Night”. If you can spare some time, please come and help in letting these studens see some of the nightsky jewels. If you can’t make it until 7 that’s great too, since they have some inside activities first. Please let me know if you can make it and i will send detailed information.
Clear Skies,
Theo Ramakers

About 900 students and faculty attended an introductory program to Space. October is the school’s “Space Month” and we expanded the view of “weather” as we experience it on earth with an introduction to “Space Weather”. In addition to clips of solar flares, CMEs, a flight from the White House to the sun, etc. the presentation explained the effect the activity on the sun has on our lives on earth. An interactive demonstration of the relative sizes of the sun and planets and and distances in the solar system rounded off the presentation. Next week we will be back to participate in the school’s “Space Night” with hands on projects and observing of the night sky through our scopes. Thanks to Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Schrader for contacting us and asking us to participate. Thanks to Frank and Theo to offer their time.

We have postponed the solar observing for the Memorial Middle School for tomorrow. The forecasted cloud coverage does not allow us to go ahead with this part of the outreach event. We will post an update when we know the new date. Frank and I will go ahead with the inside presentations.
Clear Skies (we could use)
Theo Ramakers

Next week Wednesday October 27th, we are at the Memorial Middle School in Conyers with a program to get them prepared for Astronomy and Space Exploration. We will do a presentation in the auditorium and will let the students observe the Sun on the tennis court. If you can participate with a Solar scope, please come out and let the students see what the real sun looks like. Please let me know if you can make it, so I can follow up with details.
Clear Skies,
Theo Ramakers

Thanks to Frank Garner, Stephen Ramsden and Theo Ramakers for participating in these two outreach events. We showed them at noon what the sun looks like when there are several sunspots visible as well as some filaments and prominences. It for sure was a beautiful sight. In addition, the students learned a lot about relative distances of the planets, the solar system and our Galaxy the Milky Way. At night (almost full moon) we showed them the moon, Jupiter and a globular and open star cluster. A few of them also saw M31 and M57.
On a side note, Stephen Ramsden awarded the anual Jon Woods Memorial Outreach Award from the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project during the noon session. The award was given as a total surprise to me and consisted of a complete Solar (CaK) imaging kit with PST and camera. This caught me so much off guard that I simply did not have any words to say Thank You.
Clear Skies,
Theo Ramakers