by Morris Jones
It's a beautiful weekend in San Francisco, and, fog permitting, it looks like it will be another excellent night for sidewalk astronomy with John Dobson.
Last night Jane and I took John to 9th and Irving. John had his 9.5" f/4.8 "tumbleweed," with a freshly restored ground board. I brought my newest 14.5" LITEBOX dob, and we had Jane's 6" f/5 dob by Pierre Schwarr. We were joined by the new editor of ASP's Mercury magazine, Bob Naeye, with his 12.5" Portaball newtonian.
It was a fabulous night! I unfortuantely didn't think to keep a count of visitors, but the lines at each eyepiece were fairly long all evening. John and I were on the corner for four hours with solid visitors. Bob had a difficult time closing his line long enough to take down the telescope. All of the visitors were good natured, enthusiastic, and appreciative.
John started with 200 copies of the Sidewalk Astronomers flier and ran out about halfway through the evening. It's difficult to guess how many hundreds visited each telescope. It was easily as busy as our Halloween session.
Tonight Jane and I are picking up John at 5 p.m. for a repeat performance on the corner of 24th and Noe. We have two of our LITEBOX truss-tube dobs, the 12.5" and the 14.5".
(This is one time when I envy the solid-tube dob owner. The ability to drop quickly onto a sidewalk and be up and running with no fuss is quite enviable! I'm in the middle of building an 8" sonotube dob -- the mirror is in the polishing stages and the wood is all cut. And Jane and I are finally getting a small van that will help on such sidewalk excursions as well as dark-sky weekends.)
If you fancy a visit to The City on a quarter-moon Saturday night, drop by our little corner and see John Dobson in his element. Parking can usually be found within a block or two. There are several nice places to get a good San Francisco meal in the neighborhood.