Tech Trek Science, Math, & Computer Camp - Thursday July 17th - What a Fun Evening!

by Lynne Jolitz

Yes, it really was a fun night. Fielded lots of questions around the SCT C8 while gazing at Jupiter, Alberio, M57 (ring nebula), lagoon nebula with a focal reducer - some of the girls could see colors, young eyes you see - and a few others, and ran the gamut talking about the life cycle of a star by solar mass to do stars twinkle on the moon to the optics of parabolic mirrors vesus spherical to related field questions in anthropology and life sciences. Kept me on my toes all evening. :-)

My son Ben, a 13 year old 8th grader, brought his 50 inch long, 6 inch f/8.5 Newtonian that his Grandpa and Dad built 30 years ago - he is, of course, in the midst of a grand revision of the mechanism, but showed the girls Alberio, Vega and Jupiter.

Speaking of girls, the entire time he had lots of pretty bright chatty middle school girls surrounding him asking questions about the telescope and astronomy. He said this was the very best night of the summer!

I just loved seeing the kind of enthusiasm in science I've always felt myself!

So it was a really fun night.