ASTRO-Tucson Teacher's Corner
ASTRO success story from Richard Munsterteiger
Lunar Eclipse and The Neighborhood Brownie Troupe
I was asked by a neighbor to conduct a star gazing party for her Brownie Troupe (third grade students.) They have an activity badge associated with star gazing and the solar system and needed someone to lead an activity for them to earn their badge. We selected the night of the October Lunar Eclipse as a good night for the event. I conducted the Kinestetic activity which demonstrated the moon phases and what causes the lunar and solar eclipses. We, also set up the telescope, so that the moon could be observed “close up.” It turned out to be a good night, as the early clouds cleared, observing conditions became good. The parents and some siblings were also present and wanted to observe the moon.
The Brownies had constructed shadow boxes which provided light spots of certain constellations. (I had coached the leaders to pick constellations visible in October.) Pegasus and Cassiopeia were big hits.
We all sat down. I used a star pointer to direct the Brownies to the area of the sky they had in their shadow boxes … I could also hear the parents say. “I can see that.” I wanted to show them the summer triangle … which was directly overhead … so we all laid back on the ground … I could hear the parents in the background … sighing. “What’s he doing now?” They were able to see Cygnus and the stars associated with the summer triangle. At the conclusion of the evening, one of the siblings asked me to point out Hercules. I thought it had already set. Christie said, ” According to your star chart it is still up.” (Cool—we have someone here that is really interested.) So, we turned to the west and sure enough, Christie was correct. Hercules was low on the western horizon. I pointed out that, Hercules has a special object (the M13 cluster), that she should observe.
We pointed the telescope towards Hercules and found M13. She was very excited to see it. I was happy with the results of the evening.
I think we may have a success story with Christie. A few weeks, later the neighborhood had a community garage sale. Christie came riding up on her bicycle saying, “Richard, Richard I just bought a telescope and some star books.” One of the neighbors had sold her the scope from her garage sale. Now I was starting to believe—we have captured a budding astronomer.
To continue this interest, I have conducted observing sessions with Christie on the Comet Machholz. She was able to see it and called it a large “Fuzz Ball.” She said she would continue to observe the comet and show it to her Dad. Wow—this is great and we may have captured a young astronomer. I think this is a success … we shall see—as the observing conditions get better … I will have a neighborhood star party to see how Christie is doing.
Star Gazing in Jamaica
Recently, Mary Kay and I were vacationing in Jamaica. The staff at the resort learned that I was an “astronomer.” They said they were trying to set up a star gazing activity as part of the entertainment for the resort guests. They had purchased a 4 inch Meade Newtonian with and Autostar computer. They were having a lot of trouble setting it up.
I reviewed the users manual, and conducted several sessions getting the scope aligned with the finder scope, and reviewing the features of the Autostar computer. As you know, this computer will walk you through a set up for an evening of star gazing, but you need to know how to align the scope with the reference stars.
We had a couple of “good” viewing nights, so I walked them through a set-up activity on the beach. We used Sirius and Rigel as reference stars. There is little, to no light pollution, in the area of Jamaica that we were visiting. Unfortunately, the moon was just passing full, so we could not observe many dim objects with the 4 inch telescope.
We looked at the craters on the moon and were able to track Saturn. That was a BIG hit. We looked at the Orion Nebula, and the Pleiades cluster, which provided significant interest. Several guests started to gather and wanted to participate. The entertainment staff, that I was working with, became very excited about the experience.
Later, we discussed a plan for continuing their star gazing development and how they could conduct star gazing parties for the resort guests. Hopefully, we have started an astronomy interest group in Jamaica … we have taken ASTRO Partners to an International level … this seems to be another success story.
