Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Apr 8, 2007 0:25:35 GMT -6
Far Out Friday Public Observation Session
The skies for this session did not promise crystal clear skies, but partly cloudy ones with plenty of sucker holes. We all gather for briefings and eats prior to our activity and here some of the telescope operators and Adler activity leaders to take a group shot:
Left to right: Shari, Linda, John, Debra, Carmen, Fred, Nick and myself.
It's been awhile since we started out a FOF under bright skies. With the new Daylight Savings adjustment, the sun was still out at 6:00 pm and it gave us a chance to conduct some solar observation.
Clouds near the western horizon did not offer much in solar disk viewing, but it did paint the sky a nice reddish hue...
We catch Fred, John & Debra set up using solar aperture filters on the two Dobs, but no sunspots were visible this time.
This evening had a good crowd and conversations with the visitors. Three brought their scopes with them to have us guide them in their assembly and usage. I think John did all that, as I was bouncing around from interacting with visitors, targeting Venus and Saturn, and using the computer to demonstrate and illustrate answers.
Here we have the evenings Telescope crew on the South Terrace of the Adler's Observation Deck.
Shown left to right: Debra, Linda, Fred, John and myself. No flash, just the ambient light of the Adler and city skyline. It looks like the bow of a ship.
This next shot, I used the 2nd curtain flash on the Powershot S3. This is where the shutter opens first, and then fires a flash when I tell it to. It offers the opportunity to expose the background more before firing the flash...keeping the subjects in place, where normally they would wander off right after the flash. It gives the sky a surreal/Armageddon look.
It was very cold and windy for an April session, but Linda came prepared with handy warming packets.
May should be warmer...I hope.