On Friday, March 30th several members of TAC set up their telescopes at Chabot Space and Science Center in the East Bay Hills, to provide a stargazing opportunity for some of the kids in the hematology/oncology outreach program at Children’s Hospital.
Present were Peter Rathmann and his daughter Karen with their classic 8” EQ Newtonian, Bruce Jensen and his 18” Starmaster, Richard Navarrete and his finely handcrafted 8” dob, Paul Sterngold and his tak-sharp Takahashi, and yours truly with my Televue refractor.
It was nice to be out observing in warm shirtsleeve weather- and convenient, as we used our jackets to cover a couple of the lighting fixtures blazing away next to our scopes. Bruce spent some time fine tuning his new holographic laser collimator, and Paul and his daughter looked to be having a lot of fun with their new SS2K Go-To system.
Once the kids showed up, the first thing one of them did was stick his head completely inside the front of Peter’s scope……I’m not sure exactly what he was looking for, but I hope he found it! Soon after, while Bruce was inside the Science Center for a couple of minutes, he left one of the little guys (about 10 years old) up on the ladder in charge of his scope. I don’t know if anyone else noticed or not, but I think he was pretty proud and excited to be at the helm of an 18” Dob! The kids spent about 15 minutes taking 30-second peeks at the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and M42 through various scopes, and then disappeared up the road toward the observatory with their chaperones, to see the 8” and 20” refractors. We spent the rest of the evening chatting and showing the public some of the wonders of the night sky- it’s always very fulfilling to hear all of the “oohs”, “wows”, and “oh-mys” that come with sharing our hobby with others. My deepest and sincere thanks to all who took the time out of their busy lives to help make this event possible!