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[erikruud]

American Science and Surplus in Geneva is having a "Science Party" on Friday, August 3rd from 6:00 PM to 10:00PM.

According to the flyer:
6:00-7:00 PM - Telescope Workshop
7:00-8:00 PM - Microscope Workshop
8:00-10:0 PM - Viewing

There is a flyer/coupon at www.sciplus.com/couponpopup.cfm

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I passed that place on the way to the St.Charles star party last week.

Pics if you attend this. It would be nice to see what they bring out.

[erikruud]

Rich and I ghad a pretty good time and met some new people. I am tired and going to bed, I'll report in more detail later. Rich took pictures.

[-=CROMAN=-]

some pics here. I didnt get a chance to take many because I was too busy. Erik had a bit of fun though, maybe he'll share his story. =)

elenin.paranomalo.us/2012/08/science-night-at-american-science-surplus-geneva-il/

Sorry im to lazy to do the tags right now. =)

[erikruud]

Fun???

The truly fun part was seeing a meteor in daylight for the first time. I would have missed if it Rich hadn't seen it and called out.

Fun was sharing the sky with all the people that came out to look.

The part Rich is referring to, was about halfway through the night. For the beginning of the night, I had the Mak trained on Saturn. I was showing someone how the red-dot finder on the Ares worked when I suddenly heard this loud clicking. I turned around and a boy had apparently decided to try and find a new target and was manually slewing the scope around. I said, "please don't do that" and he immediately let go of the scope nd walked away. His slewing must have loosened the altitude clutch because as soon as he let go, the Mak dropped to pointing straight down.

After checking it and realigning it seemed to be just fine. The worm gears are held against the spur gears by tension springs which allows them to skip with out stripping.

By the way, this was the first time I tried to do the full two-star alignment procedure and it seemed to work reasonably well. Both times.

I may have to reconsider trying to manage three scopes at a time at these events. There was another guy that tried to improve the focus on the Mak at one point by rotating the eyepiece.

[dayzedankonfused]

I saw the pictures posted. It looks like it was a fun time. I love the "in case of zombies break glass" and a chainsaw behind the glass...classic!

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I am not shy about shouting out at an individual who is attempting to slew a scope around, especially my own. When they do this at the Adler and I'm too late to stop them, I let them look through the eyepiece at....nothing. When they see nothing, they move on and then I re-target for the the people behind them. I get this usually at Adler events.

Why some people feel it's ok to yank at a scope, one that is apparently locked down/tracking is beyond me.

I blame fluoridation in the water.

[erikruud]

"Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!"