By Mike McGavin
This article was first published in the June 2002 issue of Southern Stars, the journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. It is reproduced here with permission.
April the 20th, 2002, was International Astronomy Day. In Wellington this day hasn’t been seriously promoted or celebrated for at least a decade. This year however, several members of the Wellington Astronomical Society as well as one or two others braved the sunlight of Civic Square to talk to pedestrians about astronomy. This was the first time that most involved had organised or taken part in such an event. We learned a lot, and this article will describe how we prepared for the event, and how it went on the day.
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Several telescopes were set up in Civic Square to lure pedestrians passing by. |
The plan was roughly figured out several months in advance. We would have solar viewing in a public place as a main event, showing sunspots to people as they walked past. Then we would invite them to an observing session later in the evening. In an ideal world, organisation would have started at least two months in advance. Unfortunately due to the voluntary nature of everything, there are obvious limits on how much effort that can be committed over a long period of time. We did still manage to organise what was a very successful day, however.
About two weeks in advance we knew what we wanted to do in more detail, and Civic Square was officially booked with the Wellington City Council. We also booked a backup day a week later in case of bad weather. We were sure we could set up on the footpath without being in anyone's way, and in some ways it seemed a waste of time to book it at all. Doing so made it official, however. This way the council can give a limited amount of support to activities being carried out, promote the event, and booking an area also guarantees that nobody else can book it. Conveniently for us, the Wellington City Council provides free bookings for non- commercial groups.
Before the day came, there was some preparation. Most of the successful preparation came from people who decided what they wanted to do on their own initiative. It would have been nice to attract some extra media attention but nobody decided they wanted to do it, so we went without.
One member, Paul Moss, decided to help design and print about 1000 flyers to distribute before the event and on the day. In doing so he was able to get his employer to sponsor the printing. The content of the flyers was quite rushed, but it came out well. To fill up both sides of a folded A4 page we included a couple of paragraphs talking about astronomers and astronomy, some pointers on how to get involved, and Paul also contributed several of his photographs. Another page contained simple maps of the sky around the Southern Cross and Scorpius, challenging people to find them in the sky, and indicating some interesting areas nearby for people to look with binoculars. The hope was that people might take them home and realise that there was more in the sky than a few bright stars. Finally we included some information about the planned daytime and evening events.
With 1,000 flyers and only about four days to go, there was suddenly a new problem of distributing them. Luckily however, several volunteers offered to take them around shops, libraries, and other places. Through this about half of them were distributed, and the rest were saved to hand out on the day.
By the time Saturday the 20th came around, we had agreed to meet in Civic Square between about 10am and 2pm. After that the Sun would start to move behind the buildings, there wouldn’t be as many pedestrians around, and everyone was likely to be hungry. Marilyn Head and myself arrived first with a 6" Dobsonian telescope for projecting, as well as Marilyn’s 11" Celestron from her back yard, and its solar filter. Over the next hour, about ten volunteers turned up. Some brought telescopes and mounted binoculars, and others just brought themselves.
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Marilyn Head prepares her 11" Celestron for solar projection. |
The 11" telescope wasn’t brought so much for its size, since obviously an 11" aperture isn’t needed for solar viewing. The main idea behind it was to grab people’s attention, and have a big commercial telescope standing next to any number of homebuilt telescopes. We did use it with the solar filter, however, which meant we were able to show people the Sun from a different perspective.
Having set up two of the telescopes for solar projecting, the next few hours were spent getting people’s attention, handing out flyers, talking to them and showing them sunspots. Atira Te Ao Nui of the Carter Observatory’s solar viewing staff came down to help.
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John Field projects the Sun with an Astroscan. |
Projecting was challenging at first. Despite having thought far enough ahead to bring some cardboard, most of us didn’t have extensive experience with solar projecting. Nobody had put serious thought into how we would mount a surface at the right distance in front of the eyepieces, for example. In the end we improvised, taping it to chairs and in some cases simply standing in the right place to project a shadow, and holding it against the force of the wind while talking to people. We also realised on the day that we had several chairs, but no table. Having something to put the flyers and handouts on, as well as adding some structure to where we wanted people to walk through the telescopes, would definitely have been helpful.
Whenever the Sun is combined with telescopes, there are obviously safety issues. With this in mind, we tried to take steps to make any unnecessary equipment inaccessible, and prevent potential accidents. Finderscopes, for example, often look more like stereotypical "telescopes" than the tubes that they’re attached to. It’s not unusual for someone to bend down and try to look through a finderscope. Keeping this in mind, we were able to remove the finderscope on one of the dobsonian telescopes. For another dobsonian, the design allowed us to simply turn the tube upside down so the finder was left in an unusable position underneath.
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The dobsonian tubes were turned upside down to make the finders less accessible. |
Before the event we had decided that there should always be people supervising, making sure that members of the public don’t try to look directly through a telescope at the Sun, and so on. This is a more challenging task than it appears. For one thing, it’s naive to assume that adults automatically know how dangerous the Sun is when combined with optical equipment. Most ordinary people don’t have access to or use binoculars very often. Many adults either aren’t aware of the dangers, or they assume that because the equipment is there and supervised by astronomers, it’s probably set up safely no matter how they use it.
When solar viewing in public like this, it makes complete sense to have a policy of never leaving a telescope in working order at any time that somebody isn’t directly and actively responsible for the telescope, intensively watching everyone’s actions as they use it. Otherwise it’s just too easy for anyone to habitually look through it and nudge it around, even trying to aim it at the Sun without thinking.
There were several occasions when people started to bend towards an eyepiece of a telescope that was projecting, possibly assuming that it was filtered in the same way as the C-11 that was nearby. We caught everyone before anything happened, but in future it’s tempting to be even stricter than we were. This idea was encouraged even more having intercepted the young boy who was curious about setting things on fire.
The evening events weren’t quite as successful. The cloud came over, ruining any chance of seeing anything besides an occasional glimpse of Jupiter. We had still arranged two events, however, and one of them was at the recently opened Gifford Observatory. Unfortunately the Gifford Observatory isn’t easy to give people directions to. Also for several reasons, not the least being safety and security of observers there alone on some nights, there are concerns about publishing directions too openly. Therefore the other event was to be held across town outside the Carter Observatory, which is very easy to find with simple directions.
The problem that we later discovered with this arrangement was related to the rushed organisation. Not enough people had committed to being at either place. As it turned out, only one volunteer actually arrived outside the Carter Observatory and everyone else went to the Gifford. Ironically, everyone wanted to go where they already knew all their friends would be. Because of this, we might focus on holding a single event in the future instead of fighting against sociological forces, wherever the event might be.
Thankfully the Carter Observatory was having an open night. Despite the lack of society membership turnout, members of the public who arrived were not stranded in a dark and astronomically barren landscape. Several interested groups also came to the Gifford Observatory, which had strategically been advertised as a family event. Even with the weather, they appeared to be having a good and interesting time.
Astronomy Day in Wellington was very successful, especially during the day. It was enjoyable for ourselves, and for members of the general public. Thanks to the success, the City Council has invited us to do the same thing again next year. Hopefully this effort has been a new beginning for Astronomy Day events in Wellington. In the future we might be able to combine attention-getting efforts with groups in other regions in a more organised way.