A thanks to our Chapter’s participants Stephen Ramsden, Clevis Jones, Jim Honeycutt, Jon Wood and Theo Ramakers for a great outreach event at Charlie Elliott!! This was actually 2 events in one. In the morning, Stephen and Theo showed the 20 children of CE’s Summer Camp the sun. We did not see any sunspots, but the SolarMax and the PST showed some nice little flares and the comments like “That’s cool” and “WoW as well as “I have never seen anything as cool as this” were heard several times.

In the evening, in our “Planetarium Room” in the Visters Center, Jon and Theo showed an annimated visit of the inner and the outer planets of the solar system . This presentation was followed by a NASA movie “Ringed Worlds” about the Cassini mission to Saturn and a short clip about the Landing of the Phoenix on Mars last May 25th.

Than it was of to the observing field where the kids saw the Moon, Jupiter and 4 moons, Saturn and its rings, M57, Alberio, Scorpio’s jewel box and other deep sky objects. The views were hindered by the almost full moon, but the views were appreciated by all. Than the evening was topped off when the entire group saw the Hubble Telescope fly by at 10:18pm.

Here the link to the images of the event.

Thanks to all the participants, and a special thank you to the staff of Summer Camp, especially Julie Duncan, the Director of Residential Programs at Charlie Elliott, for letting us be part of your Summer Camp 2008!

Theo Ramakers

Yes, we went to Charlie Elliott last night. Four of us were there, and I did not get stopped by the sheriff on the way home.

The sky coverage was minimal when we started, and increased as the evening progressed. However at around 10:30 to 11:00 it cleared up nice.

Jon and I teamed up to make an image of the Milky Way above Charlie Elliott. We mounted my 400D on his 10″ LX200R and EQ6 and made a number of unguided images.

Here is a 90 second exposure of Jupiter, Sagitarius and Scorpio with some deep sky objects embedded.
http://ceastronomy.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3130

I had a great night but I’ll let the others speak for themselves….

Clear skies
Theo Ramakers