by Jamie Dillon
Liam and I rolled down to Gonzales after he'd had his shower and met up with Porter Johnson and a bunch of kids who were doing sidewalk astronomy by the high school. PJ is the science teacher who's been running a weekly road show in all the camps and neighborhoods with the 3 Orion 8"s I helped him buy in the fall. Astronomy is alive and well in Gonzales.
This is the guy who showed up at Lake San Antonio one night when Czerwinski and company were so nice to the kids he had in tow. He's been showing off planets to the kids and not taking the time to start much with the deepsky, except for some highlights including discovering M1 on his own one night. Felix and I took him on a tour. This was amid bright town lights, on a high school campus with lights on all the buildings. Real sidewalk astro.
PJ had bug fun (a chronic typo I've here decided to keep) being introduced to M13, M5 and M3, along with the Ring Nebula and Cor Caroli, M65 and M66 in Leo, and the Double Double. M4 too which was being way washed out to the south (Soledad prison from 10 miles away). Nice sampling of object types.