Frank and I will be at Summerour Middle School this morning and afternoon with a Stereo-360 presentation and Solar observing for the 6th grade.
Clear skies,
Theo

We did a great Solar event for the Ficquett Elementary School in which all over 100 4th grade students got to see the sun in H-alpha and Calcium-K emission light. The kids loved it as we did and also got to learn about relative distances and sizes in the solar system

Frank and Theo returned to Ficquett Elementary this year with presentations for the entire 4th grade. (5 classes, over 100 students) We presented three days and let the students build a telescope, flew through the Solarsystem and looked at planets and their moons, and discussed the issues with sending and landing a spacecraft on Mars, as well as how the scientific anaysis by the spacecraft is done. Great Students and teachers!! Click the dates for pictures of the respective sessions: 2011-02-01, 2011-02-02, 2011-02-03

The covington News published an article about our next meeting in yesterday’s edition.  It included two images and details of the next meeting on February 5th.
http://www.covnews.com/section/1/article/17049/

Yesterday we did an event at Hopewell Middle School in Alpharetta. This was a follow up and some 70 students and parents attended over the 2 1/2 hour outreach event. The students build three Newtonian Telescopes a few months back. Yesterday they learned how they work in the field. After a briefing, they setup the scopes themselves, knowing how to level the tripots, point the scope to North and how to set the elevation to the correct degrees, balance the scope on both axes, and how to turn the scope so the eye piece can be reached for smaller persons. Great Students!! Unfortunately in alpharetta the clouds were supposed to break up at 6:00 P.M., but they never did, whereas the east side of Atlanta had clear skies. So we will be back when they take a look at the first night sky objects. Great Job Students!! Click here for some pictures.

GLOBE at Night Telecon January 20th: Mobilize your community to address light pollution!
One-third of outdoor lighting escapes unused into space. Such over-illumination incurs substantial costs, has consequences to energy consumption, human health and the habits and habitats of wildlife.

Join us on January 20th, 6 pm Pacific (9 pm Eastern) when Dr. Connie Walker of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory discusses ways you can interest others in your community to seek local solutions to the global problem of light pollution.
To join the Night Sky Network Teleconference on Thursday, January 20th at 6:00 pm Pacific (9:00 pm Eastern) simply call the toll-free conference line: 1-888-455-9236
Call anytime after 5:45 pm Pacific the evening of the telecon. An operator will answer and:
- You will be asked for the passcode: NIGHT SKY NETWORK
- You will be asked to give your NAME and the CLUB you belong to, and number of people listening with you.
A PowerPoint to accompany the teleconference will be available by January 19th for you to download or view online. We will link to it on the Night Sky Network Featured News (Accessible after you log into Night Sky Network).
TWO GLOBE at Night campaigns will be held in 2011, the first is February 21 to March 6 and the second is March 22 to April 4. http://www.globeatnight.org/
BONUS: After each GLOBE at Night campaign, Night Sky Network clubs who held and logged GLOBE at Night events will be entered in a drawing for five Sky Quality Meters that accurately measure the darkness of the sky.

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

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