[Peyton-observing] Peyton Public Observing, Fall 2022

[Rodrigo Córdova Rosado]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for filling out the when2meet (and remember to fill out the semester
availability!). Seems the best time is Saturday at 7pm was the best time,
however the weather window seems to have closed on us (for the record, Clear
Dark Sky <https://www.cleardarksky.com/c/PrincetonNJkey.html?1>is an
excellent tool for seeing observing conditions):
[image: image.png]
So I'll make the final call tomorrow morning, but it seems we'll have to
wait until the next window to have some time on the sky (it's looking like
next Wednesday/Thursday).

Thank you again for such quick responses and we'll plan for the next one
soon.

Regardless, Sam and I will be there for the first public observing night,
and anyone who wants to learn on the day can come up with us a bit earlier.

All the best,
Rodrigo

On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 10:07 AM Rodrigo Córdova Rosado <
rodrigoc at princeton.edu> wrote:

> TLDR: *Action Required, *Come learn to point the telescope on stars,
> planets, and everything else; dinner will be provided!
>
> Hey everyone,
>
> Thank you for signing up for Public Observing! Quick reminder, please fill
> out the google form to organize when folks are available this semester:
> https://forms.gle/6s52BcbWBr5QJjyD9.
>
> As Sam mentioned, I’ll be teaching how to use the telescope on the sky now
> that it seems we have a weather window the next couple of days. In order
> for public observing nights to run smoothly, we’ll need at least one
> experienced observer, preferably two. If you’d like to be one please fill
> out this when2meet <https://www.when2meet.com/?16726144-WEXwn> promptly:
> https://www.when2meet.com/?16726144-WEXwn , to decide when over then next
> 3 days would be most convenient for the training/additional experience.
>
> *Dinner will be provided!  *
>
> All the best,
> Rodrigo
>
> On Sep 6, 2022, at 10:11 PM, Samuel Yee <swyee at princeton.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
> Thank you to those of you who came to our orientation meeting today! And
> if you couldn't make it, that's totally fine, a brief summary of our
> discussion follows.
>
> I'm happy that we're planning to restart public observing this semester,
> after two years of not having it thanks to the pandemic. Thank you too for
> volunteering your time and suggestions!
>
> If you'd like to help out, please fill up the following form to let me
> know your availability for this semester:
> https://forms.gle/6s52BcbWBr5QJjyD9
> I will create a schedule and send it out to you, and will also confirm
> again a week before any date you're scheduled to help out.
>
> Our public observing nights are typically held once a month on Wednesdays,
> beginning at 8:30 PM in the summer and 8 PM in the winter. We use the
> 12-inch telescope on the top floor of Peyton Hall for this. They typically
> run for around 2 hours, and attract a crowd of ~ 30 - 100 people, depending
> on the season. We draw a good mix of people, including kids with their
> parents, students, people who live in the area, etc. We typically schedule
> these nights close to the new moon, plus a "rain date" a week later in case
> of inclement weather.
>
> I only briefly showed everyone the telescope operations today, since the
> weather was being uncooperative. Rodrigo has agreed to help organize
> another night to show you how to use the telescope when the weather is
> better, if you're able to attend. In any case, each observing night will
> have at least one experienced observer, and we'll make sure to go over
> things with the observers before any public observing night.
>
> We had a couple of great suggestions from today's meeting, and I'm hoping
> to implement the following:
> - Since it's hard to accommodate everyone in the telescope room at once,
> we're hoping to have some of the observers down in the auditorium, who can
> help answer questions from the public. They can also give a brief 5-minute
> short talk about something we will show in the sky that night, or something
> related to their research, accompanied by pretty pictures that can
> hopefully spark some questions/discussion.
> - We talked about having a "Halloween special", possibly with candy, and
> I've included those nights as possible dates in the poll.
> - Given the hiatus we had, I'm not sure how people will find out that
> we've restarted these events. People suggested placing an ad in the local
> newspaper, posters in the library, reaching out to local schools, and
> posting in the postdoc/grad student slack groups. Please email me if you'd
> like to help out with any of these! I will also reach out to Stephanie
> regarding posting it on the department's social media pages.
> - If you'd like to help out with improving the website
> <https://www.astro.princeton.edu/observatory/publicobserving.php>, etc.
> please let me know.
>
> If you have any other comments or questions, please feel free to send me
> an email. Do forward this to other people in the department who might be
> interested but weren't at the meeting today, so they can subscribe to the
> mailing list too.
>
> Thanks again everyone!
>
> Cheers,
> Sam Yee
> _______________________________________________
> Peyton-observing mailing list
> Peyton-observing at astro.princeton.edu
> https://mail.astro.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/peyton-observing
>
>
>

-- 
Rodrigo E. L. Córdova Rosado
Graduate Student
Department of Astrophysical Sciences
Princeton University
rodrigoc at princeton.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.astro.princeton.edu/pipermail/peyton-observing/attachments/20220909/f2cc379a/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image.png
Type: image/png
Size: 227134 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://mail.astro.princeton.edu/pipermail/peyton-observing/attachments/20220909/f2cc379a/attachment-0001.png>