Shannonside Observation night for Bansh N.S. Co. Tipperary

Shannonside Astronomy Club was honored recently to be asked
to organise an 'Observation & Information' night for Bansha National School in Co. Tipperary.

The event takes place on Saturday 16th of December at the school itself
(which has a fine south facing aspect in fairly dark skies).

Wether permitting there will be (at last count) nine scopes set up
to allow all in attendance a chance to gaze at the heavens like never before.

The children of the N.S. have been preparing for this for some time so here
is hoping for good weather!
If the night itself dosen't lend itself to visual observing,
our secetary, Tony O Hanlon, has promsed a talk and interactive learning
session.

All are welcome.
For more information please contact our:
Observing co ordinator - Dave Lilis ( www.irishastronomy.org/boards/profile.ph...viewprofile&u=20
Club Secetary - Tony O Hanlon (SAC)
Or Myself - 087 6775281

Looks like we might actually get a clear sky for this tomorrow night.
Apparently the local churches announced this last week, so the school expects half the town to show up :shock: we'll see.

As Frank said above, all are welcome and its all FREE !.

Best of luck with this guys, it's nice and clear out there now! And freezin'!

S.

Well, all I can say is that it was a miricle it rained solid for the last 6 weeks with half that time with 60mph+ winds, it stopped raining on Friday evening and was perfectly clear last night :shock:

We could clearly see the milky way stretching from Cynus in the north to the zenith and right down past Orion, I saw 4 meteors without even lookiong for them.! Many others saw meteors also, and for many it was their first time, so that was great.!

We had about 100 (rough guess) people show up, that is most of the school, and alot of locals. They all had a good look through the scopes and were well impressed, we stayed on bright objects like the pleiades, M42, M31, double cluster and general star fields around perseus/cass. The laser pointer was great for showing constellations and other objects.
We had a C8, ETX125, ETX90, 4"refractor, 2x ETX70s.

We didnt do a slideshow presentation as by the time we finished most people were going home, that was fine as the slideshow was "plan B"

I'd like to thank the school for having us there, and all the people who came along and made it a very enjoyable night !

What a night!
As Dave says 'A Miricle' is right!
Surely we couldn't have asked for better weather.

It was tough going at times,
queues behind each scope and a plethora of questions
all night.....but it was great
to see the reactions from the kids...and
even the parents, on looking through the scopes!

It was also impressive seeing the amount of preperation
the students and teachers did for this
with the drawings and solar system charts they made
in the classrooms.

Thanks again to the parish for having us and
here's to hoping we awakend some celestial passions!

It was also impressive seeing the amount of preperation
the students and teachers did for this
with the drawings and solar system charts they made
in the classrooms.

Impressive doesnt describe it, I was showing the outline of orion and describling how on the western side he is holding a shield, when one of the 10 year olds, said "isnt that sometimes a lions maine" I couldn't believe it :lol: :shock:

I remember years ago seeing a depiction of orion holding up a shield made of , you guessed it, a lions maine. :!: