Nearly 20 members along with a wide variety of scopes and binoculars descended on the Gateway Niagara Tourism Centre on Sat 9 April for a night of bringing Astronomy to the people. The weather cooperated and we had mostly clear skies which allowed us to share wonderful views of the first quarter Moon, Saturn, double stars, nebulas and more.
This was our second year at the Gateway Centre since we had great participation last year, and this year was just as successful, if not more so. We easily exceeded more than 200 people (probably more than 300) stopping by on their way to one of the restaurants inside or buying gas nearby. We often had line-ups at many of the scopes and all of our members were actively engaged answering a plethora of questions. Kevin had one of those little hand counters (great idea) and recorded more than 116 visits to his wonderful 10″ DOB.
As usual we met a lot of really nice people who showed fascination and deep interest in astronomy and the objects they were seeing. For most it was their first time seeing the Moon in such detail or the rings around Saturn. Both are always crowd pleasers. Since it was a tourism centre, many of our visitors were passing through from substantial distances, some from as far as Windsor and Oshawa.
I met one couple who are now living in Canada, but were originally from Columbia and were fascinated in how much our sky differed from theirs near the equator. We also met Lisa and some of her friends and family who were surprised to see us there, but had a real and recently discovered connection. They so much enjoyed our chance meeting, they went home, got on warmer clothes and returned for the balance of our stay. Sadly they had recently lost a relative, John Huchra, who was a professor and researcher at Harvard University. He had been a very active observer, past president of the American Astronomical Society and had been one of the early pioneers to map the galaxy distribution out a substantial way from our Milky Way galaxy. And another we met passing through, was a good friend of Dan Falk who recently was a featured speaker at one of our meetings.
We were well comforted with a warm building, convenient washrooms, – and most important, a Tim Horton’s who generously provided a free box of baked goods for us to enjoy as we were having fun with the public.
Our thanks go to all of the members who generously gave of their time, experience and enthusiasm, and did such a terrific job of representing the club and our hobby.
