Comments and anecdotes about the event:
Mark Lee reports: "Over the course of 2 hours I had approximately 30 visitors. While I showed the moon, Jupiter, and the Orion Nebula (M42), almost all of my visitors wanted to see Jupiter. Because of the cold and brisk breeze a few viewers only stayed for 3 - 4 minutes. However, most stayed longer and I rarely was by myself because the stream of people leaving the library near closing time was fairly steady and a few actually wanted to talk at greater length about what they were seeing. I even had great success with young kids. Sometimes they struggle to see an object in the eyepiece, but last night I had a 100% success rate. Cries of amazement were pretty common as Jupiter and all four moon were clearly visible at a magnification of 100. Instead of telling them what they were seeing, they would describe to me the cloud bands on the planet and then quickly ask about the four visible stars - two on each side of the planet. After learning a bit about Jupiter and it’s Galilean moons, were would then look at the bright shining object in the sky with just our eyes. This is an interesting connection to make (not just with kids) as I tell them to look for it when they get home and on following nights."