It really is my pleasure. I get to do something I love doing and make some people smile along the way. What more can one ask for?
So… tiny little secret… In my chat with Kevin yesterday afternoon after we’d decided to postpone,
he was was very disappointed (not at us, but the weather) as was I, so I offered to still show up and see what we get. During the day, today, he made announcements to the school we’d likely cancel but if they look up in the evening and you can see stars he’d open the observatory.
Well it turns out we had about 30 people come by. Mostly students and friends of students. We had the school librarian who also brought 3 people with her. One of the other teachers was entertaining the crowd talking about the schools scope. We had a family come by with three little ones and they all took their turns looking through the observatory scope, while asking lots of questions.
Astrospheric did a great job in predicting a viewing window between 7 and 8 and we took advantage by seeing Jupiter, the Moon, and Saturn. The clouds were still heavy, but it was enough to get people asking when the next event will take place. So mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned.
I did pack the clubs 8”, I’d been working on, but decided not to haul it out. Nor did I pull out the marketing material, opting to save it for next time.
I did my best to direct people to our Facebook page and our website if they wanted to learn more about astronomy. I also plugged Andy’s idea of running some telescope clinics early in the new year and that people could reach out to us via the Facebook page and email.
All in all, for a cancelled event, I’d say 30 people is quite good. Imagine what we’d get with a non-cancelled event?
