Tullamore AS - Observing Session, May 2008

TAS members recently held an observing session the Priority Lawns estate in Rhode last Friday (16th May). The session was organised by Darren Dempsey (TAS Vice Chairman) as a way of sparking an interest in astronomy and allowing some of his local neighbours to see some of the sky's highlights. After many, many emails, a few phone calls and lots of checking on Met Eireann's website it was decided the session would go ahead as planned, it was originally planned for the previous Friday but bad weather spoiled that.

Darren dropped some flyers advertising the session into local homes and five of us from TAS brought an array of equipment for the session, from a monster 12" Meade all the way down to some binoculars and everything in between. We had planned to kick off at around 10pm when things were starting to get dark but even while we were setting up people was arriving curious to "have a look" at the 3/4 moon and Saturn. We stayed for about an hour and a half showing all who attended the night sky and in that time there were quite a few "WOW!!!" comments. All in all about 30 or so local people came down to visit, they all got a view through the equipment available and many left with TAS newsletters, old astronomy magazines and the like. Some of the photos from the night can be viewed by following this:
www.flickr.com/photos/9671972@N08/sets/72157603645771387/

If you think you'd like to arrange for a similar event in your local area please contact the club Secretary at tullamoreastronomy@yahoo.co.uk who will be happy to arrange the details with you.

We had great fun meeting everyone there and hearing all the WOWs as they looked at the Moon and Saturn for the first time. Many thanks to Darren for organising it and and the TAS members who were able to make the trip and bring their astro gear to share with the public. I certainly had great fun as did everyone else I think and we hope to repeat this again sometime. Thanks John for taking the photos and writing up a little summary of the evening.

Some great pics lads, looks like a good crowd, welldone lads.!

Great to see ye making that kind of effort this time of year.
I guess it's easier to get people outside in the summer!
Well done.

Hi guys thanks for the kinds words I would like to take this opportunity to thank Michael ,John ,declan ,William from Tas for giving up their evening to travel long distances to make the night a success thanks also for the summary and the photos regards Darren :lol:

Well done guys, sorry I couldn't go, prior engagement. Looks like it went very well from the photos!

Seanie.