| This panoramic view shows many of the telescopes
and participants. Featured at the center is Justin Allen, manning
his 8-inch Dobsonian. At the far left, a visitor shares impressions
of her view of the Moon through Justin's dad's (Rick Allen) 9.25-inch SCT.
Behind Justin is Tom Crenshaw and his daughter Jennie, at their Meade 114
reflector. To the right, Joyce Jenkins at the eyepiece of their 18-inch
StarMaster as she assists hubby/AAS president Rhon Jenkins, with collimation.
Just to the right is John Williams and his 10-inch Meade LX-200 SCT as
he answers questions of the guests at his telescope. Next over, Scott
Thompson's 7-inch AstroPhysics sticks up above the crowd. Next to
him visitors peer into Ricky Wood's 12-inch Meade LX-200. At the
far right is Russell Whigham's venerable Criterion RV-6.
By the conclusion of the indoor presentations,
the clouds had mostly dissipated, and the guests adjourned outside to queue
up at our fourteen telescopes. Kids and parents alike were dazzled
at the detail on the five-day-old Moon; some returning time after time
to see the sunlit and shadowed lunar craters, rilles and mountains.
A few of the scopes had a clear shot between the trees, at Jupiter with
its Galilean Moons all in close proximity to their parent planet.
Michelle Wilson,
Layton Smith, KevinMcMurray
and Larry Mitchell all signed up on our e-mail list. Welcome
to the group!
Visitor, Gail Smitherman, of Selma, deserves
special recognition. Gail has suffered being an amateur astronomy
all alone there – observing with her 10-inch Starfinder without the benefit
of friends who share her passion. She reports that she’s been following
AAS via the AAS Web pages and drove over to meet us in person. Thanks
for the effort, Gail. Good luck finding kindred spirits in the Selma
area, but until then, we hope you’ll continue to keep up with what we’re
doing.
Special thanks to all who made time to help:
Rick and Justin Allen: 9.25-inch SCT, 8-inch
Dobsonian, and a Nexstar 80GT
Russell Whigham: Celestron C-11 SCT, Criterion
RV-6 Newtonian
Rhon and Joyce Jenkins: 18-inch StarMaster
Dobsonian
Scott Thompson: 7-inch AstroPhysics Refractor
Tom and Jennie Crenshaw: Meade TeleStar
114
John Williams: 10-inch Meade LX 50
Ricky Wood: 12-inch Meade LX-200
SCT
Robert Rock: 90mm ETX
Mark Pratt: 90mm Meade ETX Maksutov
and 70mm binoculars
Tom McGowan 20-inch Midnightelescope Dobsonian
And, to Nichole Long, David Wayne Key,
and Marty & Duane Skelton lending moral support.
And finally, huge thanks to Mark, his co-worker
Rick
and his other co-worker, Rick, for weeks of planning and promotion,
and to officer Youngblood, who has provided security at the event every
year. Can we expect even bigger and better next year? I’ll
bet so. |
