Sidewalk astronomy at Bishan Park McDonald's tonight 14/5/12

[Gary]

Dave is organising a sidewalk session tonight from 7:45pm at Bishan Park McDonald's with his 4" celestron OMNI XLT Refractor. I will be there to lend support. Feel free to drop by if you guys are free and around the area.

[Gary]

Thanks to Dave for organising this sidewalk despite a long day's work at office on Monday night! Glad to see Avarielle and newcomer Pat joining the session. We had fun bouncing off ideas on how to improve our sidewalk sessions.

We saw Saturn, Mars, M7, Jewel Box, NGC6231.

The seeing was average but there were moments it was good. Very impressed with Dave's value-for-money zoom lens bought from Astrobargains. It acts like a finder EP and a high magnfication planetary EP. Works well with a Celestron 2x barlow.

Thanks to the wonderful father who brought her daughter to take a look through Dave's scope after her tuition. Boy were they impressed with what they saw. The comment the adorable girl gave after seeing Saturn was "It is a picture!!". Her Dad was equally impressed if not more. She had an entertaining chat with Dave and Avarielle while I was explaining some upcoming astro events to her dad and using the laser pointer to illustrate the Crux and Big Dipper in the sky.

Glad to meet up with a newcomer also staying in Toa Payoh and gave him some pointers on choosing a suitable telescope for himself. He is able to have hands-on experience using Dave's refractor to understand certain basic concepts like focuser quality, magnification, field of view, pros and cons of az mount,...etc. Thanks to the non-overwhelming crowds on a weekday we are able to spend more time explaining more stuff to him and the smaller crowds.

The 24hr ground level store at Bishan North Mall (at the bustop) along Bishan St22 stocks useful items for potential sidewalk sessions at the park. Other than cheap chilled and non-chilled drinks, they carry screwdrivers, allen keys, mats and batteries at a fair price. This is useful in case someone forgets to bring some collimation tools along or their finders/collimators batteries went flat. Bought a $1 hand-crank (squeeze type) non-battery powered there and proved to be very useful for illuminating the A3 charts I prepared to ease explanation of upcoming events and astronomical concepts.

The great view from McDonald's of the park does relax the mind more compared to the concrete jungle at Toa Payoh Central. But therein also lies the fun and challenge as the more "concrete" it gets, the more people subconsciously assume nothing can be seen in the night sky and thus a greater shock when they look through the telescopes.

[Davegn]

Thanks gary for the report.

Special thanks to you, Avarielle and Pat for dropping by last night.
It would not be a success without support of you guys!

Yesterday's event was a de-stressing and fun session. What a monday blues killer despite a long working time in my office.

Cheers!!