K.A.S. Moon and Saturn Watch 2-3/4/2009

Keith - you da man! Fair play to ye and thanks for the write-up and pics. Can I assume you have no problem with IFAS using one or two of the pics?

Cheers
Dave

Thanks for the kind words everyone. Its not that I didn't want to attend any bigger events last night with you guys, but I just got the idea into my head yesterday morning that for once I would do something local. So local, in fact, it was right outside our front door :laugh:

I might not make it to tonights event in Sandymount but will definately make the effort to attend the Glendalough event tomorrow night.

Oh and Deirdre, that comment about retrospective 100 Hours registration was somewhat tongue in cheek :laugh: If you do proceed to try and register my solo event, please don't register it as a K.A.S event. That was Really tongue in cheek. "An SDAS 'Loose Cannon' Production" for the moniker will do fine. :laugh: :laugh:

dmcdona wrote:

Keith - you da man! Fair play to ye and thanks for the write-up and pics. Can I assume you have no problem with IFAS using one or two of the pics?

Cheers
Dave

:blush: :blush: Cheers Dave! No problem to use the pics. I asked the punters was it OK to take some pics and let them know there was a possibility that one or two might appear on the interwebs:laugh:

That was the best bit of reading I done in a long time. Well done!! Iv planned for the housing estate im living in to view through my scope saturday night(please clouds go away) so its gonna be me on my own.

I bet there was a few nail biting moments for you Keith?

Jononeill wrote:

That was the best bit of reading I done in a long time. Well done!! Iv planned for the housing estate im living in to view through my scope saturday night(please clouds go away) so its gonna be me on my own.

I bet there was a few nail biting moments for you Keith?

There were only two 'moments' but they weren't too nailbiting. There was the Italian lady who started to lose her balance on the step ladder and was on her way backwards. Had to quickly swing my arm out and catch her around her back. The only other moment was just a little intake of breath when the old dear on her way home from the bingo was putting some of her weight on the intelliscope handset. I feared the plastic casing might start to crack under her weight(I promise I was worried about her and not the intelliscope handset! :S :blush: :laugh: ) but didn't really need to worry, she rebalanced herself on the step ladder a second or too later and took her weight off of it.

The only 'scarey' part of the whole thing was the very few times I was on my own, not nervous for my personal safety, nervous kinda shyness in just gesturing random stranger passersby to come over and have a look. They'd invariably end up staying for 15 or 20 minutes themselves and once other passersby saw more than one person standing around and/or looking through scope these passersby would need no gesturing and would cross over the road to us themselves. I think it was kind of like, if I was on my own, people would think I was doing my own personal observing and didn't feel they could interupt, so I'd have to call them over whereas if there were 2 of us or for the most part groups around the scope, people seemed to feel more comfortable coming over to investigate all by themselves.

Its funny, everyone seemed to hang around for at least 15 or 20 minutes (even some of the Gardai, like I said :laugh: ) and for the most part there was a constant turnover of viewers, ie. there'd be averaging 8 around the scope at any given time and say 2 people who had been there for 20 minutes would say their goodbyes and leave, the 6x 5,10&15 minuters would remain and nearly straight away the 2 that left were replaced by a new 2, if you get my meaning. It was gas the amount of people who would come over to say Thank You, shaked my hand and would say they would love to stay but had to go because they had lost track of time and were now dead late for work, or a date or meeting etc :laugh:

Such a cross-section of people. I had neighbours and regulars to our shop, I had total strangers just driving or walking by, I had Gardai and Taxi Drivers beside girls dressed up to the nines for their night out now up a step ladder looking through a telescope in their mini-skirts!! :laugh: Eh...I promise I didn't pick that time to tie my shoelaces! :laugh: I had French girls, Italian ladies, British gents, Filipino Nurses, Polish builders and Chinese folks. I had gangs of lads with six packs of tinnies, guys in suits and lads in tracksuits called Anto or Damo....

To the last man and woman upon their first look into the eyepiece, silent for a second or possibly uttering "I can't see anything" (hadn't yet put their eyes close enough for the correct eyerelief) but then without fail another second or two later bursting into spontaneous joyous giggley laughter and saying "...Ohh...Ohh..My..God!! Oh Wow!!"

When I was setting up I had one of the cheeky local kids ask me what I was doing and when I told him he says, "Jaysus, thats so random loike" :laugh: I had to bite my tongue because I kind of took it as a bit of an insult. Later on that night, I realised that the kid was right. It was so random...and that, actually, was the beauty of it!! You had all these unrelated strangers from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds, all on their way to different places to do different things, thinking about this, worrying about that and suddenly out of the blue they all turned a corner or crossed the street and were doing something and seeing something that they never imagined they'd be doing when they woke up that morning nevermind just before they turned that corner. All so, very very.....Random!!:laugh:

As I said, one of my regrets was not using the 3.5mm at 428x on Saturn a lot earlier as it turned out the seeing was exceptional. Upon reflection, my other regret is not promoting it soon enough or just relying on customers and locals seeing the posters I put in the shop rather than me actively telling all the regulars and locals that they should pop down that night. ie. in work today, every few minutes when regulars and locals would come into the shop, I'd be thinking to myself, "Ah, I should have told them, they would have loved it never mind their kids....Ah, I never told that local family with those young kids..." etc.

Next time I'll be more prepared!

Rest assured Jon, Any nervousnous you may have about this and doing it on your own will evaporate the first time someone comes over for a look. You'll then be on a roll. This sidewalk astronomy lark is so personally rewarding its amazing. I mean I kind of got a taste for this at the one cloud free event I attended down in Glendalough last year but last night really drove it home to me how rewarding it truely is. I now really really understand why say John Murphy puts on the super Ballycullen Starparty in his estate every year and why Deirdre Kelleghan is like the little fluffy Duracell Bunny on steroids running around the country banging the Astronomy drum!! :laugh: :laugh:

As Ben Stiller in the Starsky and Hutch remake said.....

DO IT...DO IT....JUST DO IT!!

:laugh:

A human chord was never plucked so sweet.

A beautiful read of, clearly, an extraordinary experience for all concerned.

My hat of to you Calibos...

Mark