Front Yard Outreach

[Deane Clark]

Thanks to the unexpectedly clear skies this evening, I enjoyed about an hour of showing the Moon and Saturn to 7 of my neighbors. Got several comments of the "it looks fake" variety, but also a few "it's like I'm there!"s. One guy even got a pretty decent shot of the moon through my refractor with his iPhone. I even managed to get in a plug for the MAS web site, the Adler Planetarium, and a little basic telescope tech and light pollution education.

If I'd known it would be clear, I probably would have been at Onan, but I would have missed out on a great night in the neighborhood! It really pays to have a quick setup manual alt-az mount on a tripod that I can fit through my doors without folding it up. I've got a DiscMounts DM4 and it really works well.