Comments and anecdotes about the event:
I am so grateful for the great talk about asteroids, meteoroids, meteorites (and wrongs) that our own Bill Spizzirri gave last night to about 300 folks. What impressed me most was the ease with which Bill combined the science with the kids level, motivating their questions and using pictures and clips I had never seen before. Also impressive was Bill’s collection of meteorites that the kids eagerly touched. Then, we moved to a very nice field with 360 visibility and minimum light pollution where Michael and Amy Segura had prepared 5 telescopes from a spotting scope to an 8” Dobs and a few binoculars up to 100x20. I will never understand how they can manage all that! Rebe’s 100mil was enough for me. In that occasion a refurbished Tasco 4 ¼ Newtonian was donated to the president (and science teacher) of the newly formed school astronomy club in the name of HAS. A rebuilt Telrad was substituted (new led in wood housing) to the viewfinder too heavy for the counterweight. Of course it was a zoo with kids running around and bumping in our scopes but we were able to show the summer triangle and even Saturn. The double cluster, M13 and all the other goodies were behind the usual clouds. It was a lot of fun, but time constraints prevented us from showing Stellarium and telling the princess Andromeda story to the kids (a good intro to ½ dozen constellations to boot).