Overall the HAA can be proud to notch up another successful International Astronomy Day in the Hamilton area at Bayfront Park.

It started out as a challenge with cold temperatures and winds, mostly cloudy with only a few breaks and the occasional snow flurry – sometimes even while the sun was shining. This weather put a damper on the daytime observing and discouraged many people from joining us or even just visiting the park. However 4 club members braved the conditions and provided a partial set up in the hopes of getting some of the public to join us. Even Shylah from radio station KX 94.7 put on a good show, staying with us for 2 hours and did a couple of promos from the park. Sadly we only had a few people come visit our small set up.

Fortunately the night time activities had a lot more success, both in terms of the numbers of HAA members present and the good number of the public coming out. The skies started out very promising and the winds had subsided substantially making for a more comfortable evening. About a dozen members showed up with various scopes (SCT’s, DOB’s, refractors, reflectors) which gave the public a good selection to see and use.

No one seems to recall having taken a count of how many showed up because we got so busy with questions, but a rough guess would indicate we had at least 70 or 80 people attend the event – perhaps more. Not the best turn out, but quite respectable considering that the weather still wasn’t ideal.

We started out with views of the Moon and Jupiter. Then we had to suffer through a 45 minute period of clouds, but fortunately they dissipated and we got to marvel at Saturn for the balance of the night. We also got a chance to see the ISS space station pass overhead just before the cloud intermission which was quite a thrill for most in attendance.

Sorry for the poor quality of the evening shots provided. I didn’t use a flash and instead took longer exposures on a tripod so movement caused some blurring. Click on any photo to see a larger version in a new window.
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