Mostly clear skies greeted 22 visitors, including 17 students (14-17 years of age) and 5 leaders, from the Indigenous Services Mini-University, for a Special Event at Western University’s Cronyn Observatory, Monday, July 2nd, 2018, 9:00 p.m. Professor Jan Cami presented his digital slide presentation on “Astronomy and Space Research at Western” and fielded questions. Jan then divided them into 2 groups, taking one downstairs for demonstrations in the “Black Room” and a tour of the historic “1940s Period Room” and “1967 Period Room,” while the other went upstairs into the dome.
Graduate student Viraja Khatu was telescope operator in the dome. RASC London Centre was represented by Henry Leparskas, Bob Duff, Heather MacIsaac and Dale Armstrong. Bob directed the big 25.4cm refractor (Meade 28mm Super Wide Angle eyepiece, 157X) towards the communications tower in south London. Before the first group of visitors arrived in the dome, Viraja directed the 25.4cm refractor towards Venus and later Jupiter and Saturn, which made excellent sight for the visitors through the Meade 28mm SWA eyepiece (157X).
Henry Leparskas set up the London Centre’s home-built 30.5cm Dobsonian (17mm Nagler eyepiece, 88X) on the observation deck and showed the visitors Venus, Jupiter and the “Double-Double” star system Epsilon Lyrae. The Great Red Spot was visible on Jupiter. Dale Armstrong operated the observatory’s Meade 8-inch (20.3cm) Schmidt-Cassegrain, installing the 15mm Sky-Watcher UltraWide eyepiece together with the CEMAX 2X Barlow lens (266X) to show them Jupiter. (The CEMAX 2X Barlow lens was from the observatory’s 90mm Coronado Solar Telescope.) Heather MacIsaac set up her Celestron NexStar 90SLT 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain and showed the visitors Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, using the 17mm Plossl eyepiece (73.5X).
Downstairs in the “Black Room” Professor Jan Cami made 2 demonstrations, one to each group, of the “Transit Demonstration” with the “Transit Demo” model—showing how the transit detection method worked for finding extra-solar planets—and the “Spectroscopy Demonstration,” with the visitors putting on diffraction grating glasses to view the spectra of 4 gas discharge lamps, including hydrogen, helium, neon and mercury. Jan also gave them a tour of the historic “1940s Period Room,” a recreation of Dr. H. R. Kingston’s 1940 office, with his brass refractor and the Sotellunium—a mechanical eclipse demonstration model built by W. G. Colgrove—on display; and the “1967 Period Room,” recreating the early control room of the Elginfield Observatory to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation—Canada 150. Both “Period Rooms” were designed by RASC London Centre member Mark Tovey.
The visitors were gone by 11:00 p.m., after an enjoyable evening learning about astronomy at Western University and observing through telescopes. The RASC London members and Viraja remained behind until 11:30 p.m. to help Jan test his newly acquired 2-inch planetary eyepiece filters on the 25.4cm refractor. These included the Celestron No. 25 Red, No. 12 Yellow, No. 58A Green and No. 80A Blue filters, and an Antares No. 21 Orange filter. (Planetary filters are identified by the Kodak Wratten numbers used in photography.) As best as can be remembered, the No. 58A Green and No 21 Orange filters were tested on Saturn and the No. 25 Red and No. 80A Blue filters were tested on Jupiter, using the Meade 28mm SWA (157X) and 17mm Nagler (258X) eyepieces in the 25.4cm refractor.