'Observatory Dedicated to Boy Scouts of America'
(June 1998, BSA)
For the past three years, amateur astronomers Stephen Saber and Gene Evans have been showing the wonders of the night sky to visitors at the Loud Thunder Illowa Scout Camp and Forest Preserve in Illinois City, IL.
June and July alone see more than 2,000 Scouts from across the nation (and overseas) pass through the camp, and each are given the opportunity to view the Moon, planets, and distant galaxies through telescopes and binoculars.
The response was so well received that the HON corporation in Muscatine, Iowa funded the construction of a permanent astronomical observatory at the camp, the first specifically dedicated for use by the Boy Scouts of America.
In keeping with the forest preserve's Native American roots, the observatory was named Akotah Kanikamocik Acahkosak (The Place of Singing Stars).
Operated and maintained by Saber and Evans, the 18-foot automated dome houses a 14-inch Schmitt-Cassegrain telescope, and is available for all visiting Scout troops and their families.
[Despite my efforts and research to poetically name the observatory, it wasn't too suprising that the visiting Scouts almost immediately dubbed it the 'Thunderdome' (and I, accordingly, became 'Mad Max'). -Saber]
*****
| Outreach |
Jack and Jill went up to our moon to fetch a pail of water.
(After breaking his crown and her tumbling after they both got really weird.)
Jill set off to search the far side, while Jack was to take the pail and scout the near side.
Quite suddenly, Jack ran into Luna's only other inhabitant, the Mutant Beaver.
Formerly representing the constellation Beavius (now occupied by the Pleiades), the Mutant Beaver had been forever banished to our moon by Cepheus for gnawing on Perseus' ankle during his fight with Cetus to save the lovely Andromeda.
Finally having someone to talk to, the Mutant Beaver refuses to let Jack pass until he's heard every silly astronomy joke he's been making up during his exile.
Jack, to this day, endures the Mutant Beaver's ramblings.
Jill was last reported near the crater H.G. Wells.
Stephen Saber is an Astronomical League Master Observer and author of the 'Starhoppers Guide to the Herschel 400'.
He curses the clouds from his home in Rock Island, Illinois.
Watch for the children's book Saber's Fractured Astro Mythology coming soon.
*****
| Outreach |
For some reason I can visualize a 45 light-minute trip to Jupiter better than the equivalent 5.4 Astronomical Units (810,000,000 km/502,200,000 miles) involved.
It's also an interesting temporal perspective to pass along to the public. When asked "How far is it to Saturn?" at Outreach events, the segue "It's about an hour and a half away" always piques more than sufficient curiosity.
Following are some of the lightspeed distances from Earth to our neighbors during 2008. (Pluto started the year some 10 light-minutes farther than Neptune and put another 1.4 minutes between them by December.)
*****
| Outreach |
by Stephen Saber
Sometime between Shoemaker-Levy and the Millenium-class Hyakutake, a retired grade school science teacher had volunteered to be a guest speaker at one of our astroclub's monthly meetings. For the presentation, we would participate in one of her favorite annual astronomy class projects. Her pupils, we were told, had loved and cherished this exercise for over forty years.
We were each given a piece of paper, pencil, scotch tape, 7 plastic beads, Elmer's glue, a ruler, scissors, and maybe five feet of string.
Unconnected dots representing the Big Dipper asterism suns and their distances from us in lightyears were the only things shown on the paper.
After connecting the dots we were instructed to cut pieces of string at lengths relative to the star distances- longer lengths to represent more LYs. A bead would be glued to one end of each string, and the other end taped to the corresponding dot. The dangling beads would then be held overhead and observed from different angles to demonstrate parallax.
Looking around and seeing this large group of adults wielding little glue bottles and undersized scissors was pretty entertaining in itself, but something was nagging at me as I studiously began measuring out my strings.
Held overhead, it would be the closer stars that should be represented by longer strings.
I supposed, as we were her first classroom of amateur astronomers, that this crucial flaw in her prized project had never been addressed.
But it didn't seem to be bothering any of my classmates either- several more occupied with untangling sticky tethered beads from gooey fingers- so I could've just played along.
Instead, my hand went up as our teacher neared to check everyone's progress.
Whether she just didn't get it or simply refused to let anything undermine her beloved project and 40 years of teaching it, my epiphany was offhandedly dismissed and I was firmly reprimanded to follow the directions as given.
The snickering from my gooey classmates at the scolding added a surreal reminiscent touch to this 'back in school' experience, as did the compulsion to disobey and finish the project accurately anyway. Which I did.
After class I brought my work of art home and even had it taped to a ceiling for several weeks. But it wasn't the unique perspective required to view our Dipper as a dipper that left an impression on me so much as the sense of our isolation and the all but infinite possible alternate views that might await us in the next millenia or so of space travel.
By the way, I didn't really get an 'F'. In fact, my actual grade remains a mystery as our guest teacher didn't come within 20 feet of me for the rest of the presentation.
That distance depending, of course, on where you were watching us from.
Here are the asterism stars' distances in lightyears for those wishing to share this fun and educational project with their club or class:
Alkaid 100
Mizar 78
Alioth 81
Megrez 65
Phecda 84
Merak 79
Dubhe 124
Saber Does The Stars at
www.astronomyblogs.com/member/saberscorpx
[Left Ascension, September '08]
*****
| Outreach |
