We have been very busy hosting two star
parties at Sedgwick Reserve within the last week!
The first was held on Saturday evening
(April 30) for a group from the Friends of KITP, attended by LCOGTers
Wayne Rosing, Rachel Ross and Robert Paulson. The Friends of KITP
“creates educational and entertaining opportunities for members of
the community to engage with renowned scientists.” One of these
opportunities was for the group to come experience a beautiful
evening at Sedgwick Reserve, which included hors'devours a tour of
the ranch house and a walk to the pond, a delicious catered dinner
with a welcome from Wayne with a brief history of LCOGT, and dessert
while participating in a tour of the stars and constellations by
Rachel and looking through telescopes at a handful of objects.
Although electrical problems with BOS prevented us from observing
through it, the group heard all about the telescope we had two other
telescopes set up (an AP 178 and a Skylight F15), the skies were
good and clear, and everyone had a great time!
The second star party was held on
Wednesday evening (May 4) for a group from UCSB who are taking an
observational astronomy class. During this class, they use the BOS
remotely from campus to gather data to analyze throughout the
quarter. We took a trip out there, including Rachel Ross and BJ
Fulton from LCOGT, to give the students a hands-on feel for a
telescope they have already been controlling through a computer. The
BOS had been fixed (many thanks to the wonderful team at LCOGT!) and
performed beautifully. Between the 0.8m and the AP 178 telescopes, a
warm and very clear night, and a group of enthusiastic students, we
took a tour of the sky and observed many objects including Saturn
(with 4 visible moons!), M13, M5, M3, M51, M44, and more. I'm sure
this group would have stayed all night if possible, but finally we
decided to wrap things up a little after 11pm.
Both star parties were huge successes
and the groups were great! Two very fun evenings!
