Tonight the White House threw a star party for 150 middle school students in Washington DC. Turns out, one of the 20 astronomers was local business owner Dean Koenig! He runs Starizona, an astronomy and nature shop known throughout the region - a truly great guy. The business is known for being open 4 nights a week where you can actually "kick the tires" and use the telescopes or equipment at night before you buy - pretty much unheard of. Will have to talk to him about THAT star party!
Anyway, when the local Flandrau Science Center heard about the White House event, they quickly pulled together an even on the University Mall for public viewing, where astronomy club members and others set up scopes for the public.
Unfortunately, the normally great fall weather didn't get the memo and the sky gradually worsened as it got darker. There was a great display of crepuscular rays towards sunset - you can see how the Arizona flag's designer got their inspiration. I took a sequence of the fast-moving clouds in the darkening sky for an animated gif, but it never cleared for observing. I spotted Jupiter once for about 10 seconds, just long enough to point the scope at it, focus and see that the seeing (atmospheric turbulence) was just about as bad as I'd ever seen it! Even so, the folks who set up interacted with some gathering public, and caught up on astronomical news. In the bottom picture, John Kalas adjusts his telescope, just in case it clears. More astronomy events planned for the weekend - forecast calls for clearing!
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