The response in my part of Palo Alto was overwhelmingly positive. Not only did we get the batches of trick-or-treaters but the neighbors started coming out of their houses to look. I switched back and forth between Saturn and Jupiter, which allowed us to get the kids coming up the street, and then they'd cross over for their look at the other planet coming back down the other side of the street.

You did have to invite them to look; otherwise they seemed a bit scared of the high-techy thing with knobs everywhere and counterweights, finder scopes and dew zappers hanging all over it. You also have to watch the littlest ones carefully or they instinctively grab the eyepiece and send Saturn out into left field (this happened more than once). I used 150X, which gave a decent sized view without rushing out of the field of view very fast (Motors? What motors?).Seeing was surprisingly good for the middle of suburbia right out at the edge of the asphalt street, with many bands visible on Jupiter and Cassini's division fairly evident most of the time. I had the Observer's Handbook handy for reference, and it was good I did, because you get a lot of questions and by no means are they all trivial ones. As I have noticed before, it is the parents who are most reluctant to look; I don't know why. Maybe it's because they're still enjoying the rush of watching their children's faces light up with excitement.

90% of the time, we noticed the children didn't even remember to ask for the typical treats, although there was a big basket full of mixed nuts right there to grab from (Our "theme" for the evening was "You have to be nuts not to want to look at Saturn", you see. Perhaps they were sickened by the joke--it was pretty lame.) The local squirrels are going to profit mightily from the leftovers.

One of the neighbors went off with the Orion catalog, btw. He and his wife both were enamored of the views; I suspect a shiny new telescope under the tree is in the offing (as they left, he said, "You know, this year I..." and she cut him off, saying, "Yes..." One could just almost see the *click* of a marital agreement to spend big bucks snap in.).