Moon Highlights

On Thursday January 21st, we hosted Columbia University's Treasury Department for an hour and a half of discussion and observations. First we taught the 12 or so attendees about the recent discovery of water on the moon. We detailed the nature of these discoveries and the implications they have for future space exploration and extraterrestrial life. Then we went up to the roof to take advantage of the cloud-free night. The Orion Nebula, the Pleaides and the first-quarter Moon were all visible.

--Cameron

Telescopes and Children

On Friday, we hosted about 26 first and second graders, plus two fifth graders, from the EP1 public school.  Lia Corrales and Nick Hunt-Walker were the two graduate student volunteers for this group.  The visit lasted from 11 am to about 12:45 pm.

A lot of the session was based on telescopes.  The kids were asked to draw a picture or write their name on a piece of paper, which we taped to a wall on the opposite end of the hallway.  Then they looked at the pictures through a galileoscope to see how the image was flipped upside-down.  We showed them how the lenses flipped the image using an optics bench demonstration.  We then gave them a tour of the observatory and explained to them the difference between a refracting (lense) telescope and a reflecting (mirror) telescope.  Finally, we gave them a slide show of solar system pictures and answered their questions.  The children sang us a song before leaving.

Overall, it went well because the kids were enthusiastic (and adorable).  One thing that would have made it better would have been using tripods with the galileoscopes.  It was difficult to keep them steady enough for the kids to look through.  An adult ended up steadying each using the back of a chair so that kids could look, so it took a long time to get through that portion of the activity.

- Lia -

Fourth-graders experience Meteors

Yesterday, we were visited by a fourth-grade class from the Children's School of Brooklyn (P.S. 372). Together we went through several educational activities on the theme of "Comets, Asteroids and Meteors" to commemorate the Leonid Meteor Shower this week. We produced a small slideshow and discussed the differences between comets, asteroids and meteors. The students then created sandbox craters to discover the relationship between impactor size, speed and consequent crater size. We made a dry-ice comet out of household materials and demonstrated why it gets a tail as it falls into the inner solar system.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't clear so we couldn't do any solar observations, but the students did get to see the telescopes, observe nearby Riverside Church, and see how different telescopes work. Lastly, we discussed how we, the graduate students got our start in astronomy and science, and what the children could do at this young age to pursue science and mathematics. All in all, it was very successful, and I thank the class and teachers for their visit!

--Cameron

Visit from Manhattan School for Children

Last night we had a group of 250 children and their parents from the Manhattan School for Children visit the observatory. After distributing some NASA swag to all of the children in the audience, we got started. We had a thirty-minute talk about what makes asteroids, comets and meteors different from one another, and how you can identify them in the sky. After some great questions from some of the elementary-school students in the audience, we showed a video of a NASA shuttle launch from last year along with footage of the crew aboard the shuttle while it was in orbit.

The second hour was meant to give the children views of the first-quarter Moon, Jupiter, and Albireo through our telescopes. Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative, and clouds covered most of the sky. We made the best of the situation with demonstrations of how reflecting telescopes work and views of nearby buildings through our telescopes on the roof and in front of the observatory. At the very end, the Moon peeked through some clouds to give a few remaining attendees views of its craters and mountains.

Thank you to Shakira Castronovo from MSC for helping to organize this event. I invite all the attendees to come to one of our public nights when hopefully the weather will be more cooperative!

--Cameron