The HAA was at the IYA kickoff event at the Ontario Science Centre on Sat 10 Jan 2009 which was a great success. We were 1 of 4 astronomy clubs represented amongst about 2 dozen booths set up in several halls at the OSC. (NYAA, and Mississauga and Toronto RASC clubs were the others.)
Steve, Jackie and Jim arrived early Sat morning to get set up at the HAA booth. They had been down on Friday for the official kickoff and press releases. Then rushed back for our club meeting that night. So while tired, they valiantly returned to ensure that the HAA was well represented and show the others what a great astronomy club is all about.
John Gauvreau was resplendent in his Galileo outfit both days, enthusiastically speaking to hundreds of people about Galileo’s early experiments and his impact on astronomy. He had done some interviews on the Friday and I was fortunate to catch one of them on CP24 in the morning. As usual, he did a great job.
We had a great location for our booth where we had 2 crater demonstration trays set up along with colouring sheets featuring the planets and also had some word games to amuse and educate the kids. Jim also had brought along his 8″ SCT, and binos on his home-built parallelogram. We also had our projector setup to show many of our club’s activities from the past few years. Hundreds of people stopped by to ask questions and play making craters. HAA members Marg Walton, Bruce Peart and Doug Black made the trip to Toronto and stopped by the booth for a visit during the day.
A more detailed report will follow in the Feb EH.
Update:
I was going to save this for the EH report, but since there will be much demand to see this, I offer you Galileo in person:
