Sidewalk Astronomy sessions take place at the Chapters or Walmart parking lots in Kelowna and in front of the Earls restaurant in Vernon. This a casual get together of RASC members interested in sharing astronomy with the public. Our targets from the mall parking lot are limited to the Sun, Moon and planets (when available), this is enough however, to elicit a great deal of excitement and gratitude from the public. The sessions usually take place from about 6:00pm to 10:00pm. Sidewalk astronomy is available as a member activity between EVERY first quarter and full moon. If you are interested in either a Vernon or Kelowna session please contact guy.m@shaw.ca. You can also join the maillist to stay informed.

September 26th, 2008

Another superb public night at the Observatory. The astronomers (Jim
T, Dave G, Zoli, Andrew, Greg, Grant and Colleen) equaled the visitors
(7) and all were treated to a 4 min plus ISS pass which itself was
highlighted by a marvelous meteor at the zenith. Ohhs and Awws came
from everyone! Again, the night started with clouds and ended overcast
but the time between was awesome and appreciated by all. Next night,
Friday, Oct 3, 7-10pm.

September 19th, 2008

First Night is a Winner!

Members Brad, Bryan, Jim T, Jim Failes, Jim Fisher, Guy, Zoli, Grant,
Richard, David P, Dorothy P, Archie, Bev, Lynn and Colleen were on
hand at the inaugural public viewing night at the Observatory. I sure
hope I haven't forgotten anyone. We welcomed about 60 guests and
showed them cloudy views for the first little while. Jupiter played
peek-a-boo but as it darkened the clouds moved off and we had great
views of M57, M13, M31, M27, M82, Alberio etc and constellations
galore with the Milky Way arching overhead. The cocoa (thank-you
Dorothy), coffee and timbits (thank-you Lynn) were snapped up quickly
by young and old alike and chased the chill away. As the Moon rose the
clouds returned and we quickly packed up and drove back home grinning
from ear to ear. The Okanagan Observatory is a reality! The next
public event will be Friday, Sept 26 with Jim T leading the way. It
will be a scaled down version of tonight with a traffic person and
scopes. Please let me know if you can make it out for this event.
Remember, we will be trying to hold a public event every Friday this
fall so look ahead and tell me which nights you will be available for.
Thank-you everyone!

April 17th, 2008

Colleen and I enjoyed another fun night at Wal-Mart last night. Quite a few donations to our observatory project jangled into the donation box and a group of Girl Guides were real excited to Saturn and left us a box of GG cookies. Probably done with sidewalk observing of Saturn for this year but during the May sidewalk session we can warm up a bit and share views of the Sun and Moon.

cookie-fed-parking-lot-pylon
Guy

April 16th, 2008

Had a great time at sidewalk astronomy last night with Colleen, Zoli and our many appreciative guests looking at Saturn and the Moon. A normal Wal-Mart night with lots of family traffic, so the ladders were working overtime. Colleen uses her starry-streamer head-gear to attract attention (beautiful plumage) and I do my carnival barker routine,..
" Greatest show on earth and its absolutely free!"
" See the rings of Saturn with your own eyes!"
" Travel through space and time,... see Saturn as it was 80 minutes ago"
and new last night,...
" No Shop, Stopping!" :)

This will likely be the last sidewalk window this season in which we will have Saturn to view so I hope we get another night out to share with the public.

Guy Mackie

Wayne Willett organized the Okanagan Centre members to put a float in the Vernon Winter Carnival parade. I was the float driver using Jim Tisdale’s truck, which held the OSC 18” scope and Colleen the “Galaxy Princess”. Walking with the float were some of Sharon McKenzie’s students, Zoli and Wayne. Helping to set up the float with scope, banners and stars were Bryan Kelso, Hugh Carter, Lawrie Plomp and Joel Wright.

I left home early that day, about 6:30am, to pick up the truck from Jim and then met Zoli at the KCC, which we left at 7:15. Doing the preliminary decorating at Okanagan Science Centre till about 10:00am and then off to our staging area near where the parade was to begin. We spent 2 ½ hours on this side street finishing up the decorations and just waiting around. Zoli kept making trips to the corner store treating us all to coffee and snacks but he never delivered on the beer and sausage I ordered? It was really cool when we were awarded a second place blue ribbon in our float category! (which I jokingly call the “Trailer Park” category) I think this was in large part due to the answers given to the judge’s questions by the young students that were the walking aliens for our float.

Once the parade began we were thrilled to see that the “Rube Band” (a funky jazz band) was right behind us putting an extra skip in our walk, an extra oomph in our waves and a big smile on our faces,… this spilled over onto the crowds lining the street so it was like a one-hour and one-kilometre long 1 ‘par-tay’ celebrating the “Carnival in the Sky” and the Okanagan Centre.

May 19th, 2007
6:30 to 10:00
Wal-Mart Parking Lot
International Sidewalk Astronomy Day

The Moon and Venus stole the show on this night, sure didn't need a
telescope to appreciate that fantastic sight! I was first to arrive
and had a devil of a time trying to see my Rigel rings in order to
find the moon. Old guy with some big tube-thingy standing in the
parking lot, with his head and the end of the tube covered in a
jacket, occasionally flipping the jacket up to squint into the clear
blue sky as if looking for a 3:00am vacancy sign. Finally stumbled on
to Venus and hung onto it like the last chair at the deli. People
really got a kick out of the half phase of Venus and when Colleen
arrived she used her 10" on Venus and I tracked the Moon. The Moon and
Venus remained in clear sky for all but a few minutes of the entire
evening, which is amazing, as I had expected it to be raining. A girl
was looking at the Moon through my scope and said she could see a big
capital "R" on the Moon and sure enough I took a quick R-preferred
glance and there it was big as life, easy to spot. I believe it is a
rilles network on the floor of the crater Petavius, and it should be
in the shadow sweet spot again on June 18th. Jim Tisdale arrived with
his Williams refractor to provide a complete Moon-Venus view that
looked great and showed what super views a smaller scope can provide.
Saturn strode onto the stage a little late to the party and energized
the crew and passengers on our celestial cruise, but nothing could
beat the naked eye view of the Moon and Venus. We probably had about
200 people come by to enjoy the show.

Guy

Mar 29th, 2007

So's ya know we had a Sidewalk Astronomy session at Wal-Mart on Tuesday night this week with Colleen, Guy, Zoli and David P attending. This occasion was memorable as the first night that David's 14.5" Starmaster entertained the great crowds.

I did a solo sidewalk session tonight at Wal-Mart, the Moon was good to view for about two hours and I could show Saturn for about two minutes. The Wal-Mart duty manager came out to see me and thank the RASC for doing the sidewalk stuff and said that at Colleen's prompting she will be writing up an endorsement letter for the observatory.

conjuring spells
Guy

The Okanagan College Career Fair for 2006 was once again a big success. Here are some photos of the preparation and presentation. Thanks to Colleen for the photos.

What a perfectly ghoulish night at WalMart! More people than I was expecting and even some Trick or Treaters. WalMart supplied some cheese sticks (mined on the Moon) for the occasion and sky provided crystal clear views of the cheese miners.

Lots of fun in Kerry Park with Colleen, Zoli and myself,.... and endless non-stop line-ups at our telescopes. Our guests were very pleased with views of Solar prominences, Jupiter, Alberio and the Moon. The park environment adds a bit of magic to the whole effort and is some super-summer fun.

Children playing in the grass, entertaining music, a breeze off of the lake and appreciative happy crowds of astronomy enthusiasts,..... if you are looking for an excuse to have fun the Parks Alive activities might fill the bill! I have enjoyed the past two nights (Gyro on Monday and Island Stage tonight) with Colleen and her travelling astronomy show, and I welcome others to consider taking an evening in the Park to relax, reflect and relate.

Guy

Had a great time with Colleen at Strathcona Park.
A nice cool breeze off of the lake, music, kids playing in the grass and a tiny solar prominence to share with those that were interested. Everyone with the Parks Alive team is a big fan of Colleen and enjoying the flavour that astronomical appreciation brings to the park.

A real fun night at the opening night of the new Priates of the Caribean movie with Colleen, Zoli and Guy sharing views of the Sun, Moon, Jupiter and Alberio. Very large crowds coming by to look through the scopes, with everyone in a party atmosphere and lots of people in costume including our own Capt'n Colleen.

Using the quite accurate S&T charts I was quickly on the trajectory for Asteroid 2004 XP14 a little after 11:00pm. For the next two hours I achieved at least 5 goods marks on the path, and about 3 more that were compromised by some clouds, where I waited for the asteroid to creep by on its orbit just outside of the Moon orbital distance. While waiting about 5 to 10 minutes per mark I would also drift forward, backward and side to side along the path in hopes of picking it up. On one occasion I used 158x (higher) power but still no creeping photons. Eventually it starts to seem like everything in the FOV is moving and fatigue won the day with no asteroid seen. Upon returning home I have reviewed my notes and there appears a strong chance that I had my UT mixed up <<again>> and was on every mark about 1 hour ahead of the target time.

What a glorious day it was to celebrate our national birthday. Colleen, Richard
and myself staffed the RASC solar observing booth by the Dolphins, and were
privilaged to share views of that huge sunspot and some quite distinct flares
with the PST. Colleen returned in the evening (until the wee small hours) to
share views of many nocturnal delights with the happy celebrants.

Hello All

Must have gotten a handshake about 25 times at the sidewalk astronomy
session at Chapters tonight. Well over 100 visitors (really well over, I
couldn't count) at the telescopes. I had my 8" on the Sun from 6:30 to
7:30 then brought out the 12.5" and had both scopes going observing the
Moon Jupiter Saturn Mars and Venus. It was NON STOP from 7:30 to 9:30,
always people at the telescopes, crowds of 6 to 10 people lining up for
their turn. I was training people on how to use the Telrad in order to
keep both scopes going. (JimFailes: the guy who rides his bicycle
backwards was there) (Richard Christie: two of your former students were
there) (several of my OILR students were there, they saw the skies,
checked their calendars and came by to see if I was out) Most of the
people were aware of the planetary alignment and had lots of questions.
Chapters wants me to come by tomorrow and give them a schedule of the
days when we can be set up so that they can make a poster for the
entrance and make in store announcements. 

Later
Guy

WOW

Had one of my busiest sidewalk sessions to date! I was set up at the
Chapter's parking lot about 5:30 and immediately SWAMPED. There were people
at the scope continuously till 7:00pm. Usually no less than 6 people at a
time waiting a turn, and many times there were more than 10 people huddled
around waiting their turn! There was no way to keep count, but in that short
time I am sure at least 100 people had a look,.... really! It was insane! By
7:30 the clouds got thicker and I packed it up, but there were still people
that just wanted to talk. Jupiter and Saturn provided excellent views and
there were many excited "WOW's and "OH MY GOD's" and "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT's"
and "OH YOU GOTTA SEE THIS's" and "Thank you, thank you, thank
you...........". I got my usual cup of free coffee delivered, and was very
pleased with the evening. One little girl of about 3 years, definitely saw
Saturn's rings and could even pick out the planet naked eye. This is unusual
as the younger children often do not get the concept at all,.... a future
astronomer perhaps? I was amazed.

All this on a night when the mall closed at 6:00 which should have cut the
numbers down a lot. I was out Friday night as well but the clouds came in
quicker and I was skunked by 6:30. This is just about the end of this
"sidewalk window", but for the next couple months we will have Jupiter and
Saturn well placed which REALLY makes this a lot of fun. I am sure looking
forward to the next "sidewalk window"!

Later
Guy

I enjoyed a very successful Sidewalk Astronomy session at the Orchard Park
Mall (Kelowna BC) parking lot. I was set up by 6:00pm and was immediately
swamped by appreciative visitors for the next three+ hours. By my rough
count I had about 100+ people getting very good views of Saturn, Jupiter and
the Moon. There were many grateful "THANK YOU's" and several offers of cups
of coffee from the shop inside the Chapters store. I didn't accept any
coffee till after 8:30 though because of my inability to leave the scope in
order to "go water the horses", if you know what I mean. The Chapters (book
retailer) store was making in-store announcements and I could see many of
their customers making bee-lines out to me in the parking lot. I was taken
aback as a group of 5 or 6 adults started to rave that there was some kind
of trick, and that I could not REALLY be showing them Saturn. It took
several sweeps back and forth between Saturn and Jupiter before they were
somewhat mollified and reluctantly accepted that I was not pulling some
hoax. Perhaps I need to work on my presentation, a shave and haircut
probably wouldn't hurt, but it would reduce the star crazed lunatic affect
that I am shooting for. It was really super to see the wide smiles of the
children as they saw "the rings", they were just amazed and wished me a very
Happy Christmas. T'were a fine time!

I was clouded out at the "sidewalk" site at 9:15, but I had a strong hunch
that this was valley cloud and decided to head up to the Goudie Road site
(1200 meter alt, wilderness site, 20 kilometers east of the sidewalk
astronomy site). I arrived at Goudie just after 9:30 under totally
cloud-free skies with a VLM of 6.3 straight out of the van. I selected as my
first target the 14mag galaxy Maffei I in Cass. This object is probably
beyond the grasp of my 12.5" Starmaster, but these Don Quixote-like quests
seem to keep me happy. I was no sooner getting lost (but not about to give
up) on my star hop from NGC 957 (I think it was 957, charts are in the van
as I type), when I was clouded out again. It came on as a ground fog but was
probably just the valley cloud climbing up to catch me. The evergreen trees
around me were going off like canon fire as the sap froze, and I decided to
call it a night. While packing a check on the thermometer showed -17C, seems
we DO get winter in the Okanagan!

Guy Mackie
OC RASC

Had a great sidewalk astronomy session on Friday night. I was set up by
6:30pm, and decided to try and make an accurate count of the visitors for
the night. By 7:30 I had 47 people look through the scope and I got tried of
counting. I stayed till 10:00pm and I would estimate that I had at least 150
people visit the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. There were often 10 people
standing around waiting to get a turn at the eyepiece. One man bought me one
of those coffee's with the whipped cream and chocolate sauce because he was
so happy about seeing Saturn's rings! Mom's and Dad's were coming back with
their families, and I had little kids pile out of the SUV in bare feet and
in PJ's to look through the scope. Four times it was mentioned that people
had met me there at previous sidewalk sessions, one lady and her son were
back specifically because I had said several months ago that Saturn would be
visible by November! Oh yes there were clouds,... but believe it or not I
always had a target to look at, and the Moon is good even though quite heavy
cloud.

Later
Guy