TelescopesMy astronomy club, the Willingboro Astronomical Society, engages in a variety of public outreach programs, and this past Saturday we held a program for a GEMS (Girls Enjoying Math and Science) group. The GEMS program is part of the Girl Scouts. Our plan was to set up a number of telescopes and have the girls explore the night sky. Shown here is club Star Watch Director Bernie Hosko's scope, set up on the "beach". Alas, those lens covers would stay put as not long after this it started to snow, albeit only flurries.
The "Lake"
The "Lake"The "beach" is on the "lake". The lake is gone. On Monday July 12th, 2004 twelve inches of rain fell in one day. This resulted in a cascading wave of dam failures in the region, including the one here (if you look very closely remnants of the dam can be seen in the center of the image where the grass meets the tree line). The Girl Scouts do not have enough money to rebuild the dam.
Stream
StreamAll that remains of the lake is this stream flowing through the field.
Peanut
PeanutThis is Peanut, Bernie's dog and our unofficial star watch mascot. She loves exploring our star watch sites. As you might imagine, snow flurries make for rather difficult star gazing. So we packed up our scopes and headed indoors, where Bernie gave an impromptu program using his laptop computer and we had a lengthy question and answer session. The girls asked a number of interesting and insightful questions. And Peanut loved the attention she received from all the girls.
Snow
SnowAfter saying our goodbyes we headed out to our cars and were greeted with this. Heavy snow with very large flakes (actually clusters of flakes). The snow had ended by the time I got home. But it was very pretty while it lasted.
Yummy Snowflakes
Yummy SnowflakesThe girls were at the camp for the weekend. And on the way to their cabins for the night they did the same thing we did when we first exited the meeting hall. A fun time was had by all.
6 comments:
Aww, Peanut is such a cutie. Pretty snow picture too!
Oh and sure after the fact sixes are allowed! Just leave a comment on the right week's post, and I'll add it in. If you then want to post link to the late sixes in the next one you do (to make sure people know you've done them - they might not check my everyone posts after the week's done), then people stand a good chance of seeing them. If people want to do them, I'm happy, doesn't matter how late they're posted!
What a wonderful series of pictures - I bet the girl scouts loved your presentation and your mascot - Peanut! Cool pictures came out of your afternoon!!
I enjoyed going on your scouting outing via your pictures. Too bad about the star gazing, but the snow pictures turned out well. Sounds like a good day--even with the change in plans. Peanut is a cutie.
Great series. Looks like a lot of fun.
I really like the first picture in this series. I think it's the simplicity of it. Just the great focus on the telescope, with nature as the background. Peanut is a cutie, too! I wish we'd had star gazing events when I was a Girl Scout!
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