[Peyton-observing] Public observing last Wed, Mar 2nd

[Munan Gong]

Hi all,
Felipe, Chris and I hosted the public observing last Wednesday. It was a
big day - about 50 people came. We divided them into 2 groups: Chris took
half of the crowd to visit the building, and Felipe and I managed the
telescope in the meanwhile. Then the group rotates.

We saw orion nebular, double cluster, Pleiades, M81, M82, M51(2 galaxy
center barely visible), and the highlight of the night - Jupiter and its
four moons. Jupiter seemed to be particularly big and bright in opposition.
It was very helpful to have Chris's laser pointer to point to orion and
Pleiades. Looking at Orion nebular and then open clusters also makes a good
story about star formation. There is a brilliant (India-American?) kid, a
high school freshman who knows so much, including helium flash and T Tauri
stars. He says he's very interested in astronomy, especially cosmology, and
has read lots of books. We might see him again in public observing.

The viewing at the beginning of the night suffered from the turbulence. It
would be nice to open the dome an hour or two before observing to cool it
down.

Thanks!
Munan
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