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(This article appeared in the first quarter 2007 STAR Newsletter. -I)
Astronomy
Days 2007
By
Ian Hewitt
It
was January again (seems to come around every year) and you know what
that means! New Year’s? Playoff Games? No! Astronomy Days!!! This
year, RAC had another great event and you all deserve a big hand of
applause! This year everyone focused on updating many of the
exhibits to help keep the event fresh and it resulted in an
attendance of 16,695 people (not that we were counting). That's over
twice what we had last year, even with the rain on Sunday. RAC
received a lot of great comments from museum visitors, the folks from
NASA, and the museum staff. All were very impressed with our
exhibits and enthusiasm.
Of
course, the busy weekend started with the traditional Friday night
lecture. This year one of NASA’s very distinguished ex-astronauts
Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz was the speaker. In addition to an
impressive space flight record, he was also head of NASA’s advanced
propulsion laboratory. He now runs a private company carrying on the
work he did at NASA. He gave an excellent talk on propulsion and
there were many questions. He, along with several other NASA folks,
went out to eat with the club at the Raleigh GAS club meeting
afterwards.
This
year RAC members created a number of new exhibits for the event.
Ralph James, Brian Reasor, and Jim Dellapenna revamped and greatly
expanded the Solar System exhibit with new materials and examples for
the public. Steve Goodman, Pat Moore, and Bill Webster put a
tremendous amount of work into a Speed of Light (or Distance of
Light, depending on who you ask!) demonstration. This is a very cool
hands-on station that demonstrates the relative speed of light by
comparing it to well known objects. The speed of light is a very
important concept and, of course, many people know the measurement,
but at the same time most people have troubling understanding the
relative magnitude of large numbers. Relating this concept to real
world objects is helpful for understanding. The exhibit features a
globe with LEDs around it. Different buttons would show how far
certain objects traveled over a certain time. They were a car
traveling for ten hours, a plane traveling for five hours, the space
shuttle traveling for fifteen minutes, and the speed of light in one
second. Of course, only one person in the audience has any real
experience with the space shuttle (Dr. Chang-Diaz), but everyone
knows it goes very fast and we wanted to show that’s peanuts to the
speed of light. It is important to note that this exhibit could never
have been built without significant support from Pat Moore
Construction and generosity of SunStone Circuits.
Steve
Izzo and Mike Etkin worked on a updated Astrophotography display
including some live demonstrations. This exhibit featured many
stellar (ahem…) photographs and we are considering breaking this
into two exhibits next year! Of course, there was solar observing
aplenty, although not during the rain on Sunday.
Of
course, RAC also received a lot of help from our partners in this
event. Once again, NASA generously provided support for the event.
In addition to a grant which helped finance all the cool new exhibits
we built, they also sent teams from the Marshall Space Flight Center
and NASA Langely. They provided two great exhibits - a spectacular
multimedia exhibit on the next generation spacecraft, and a virtual
globe that many thought was one of the coolest things there (and
that’s something when you consider the multimedia exhibit had a
10-foot screen).
The
Triangle Robotics Club started working on a replica of the Mars
Exploration Rovers. This year, it was just the under-carriage and it
was used to drive over willing young participants. Ostensibly, this
was to demonstrate the flexibility of the design, but most of the
kids thought it was just cool! Cary Space Camp was also present and
took many pictures of kids in replica shuttle survival suits. This
year the NOAA had booth on space weather. Last, but not least,
Progress Energy provided a technician and infrared camera for some
really cool demonstrations in one of the classrooms.
As
always, none of this would be possible without the terrific volunteer
efforts of our members. In addition to the folks who developed the
exhibits, we had a lot of other members put in the time to answer
questions and educate the public. They are: Urvil Mehta, Yosh Mehta,
Dan Lamson, Darice Frey, Dick Ossowski, Sheila Bayer, Betty Ann
O'brien, Richard Bodnar, Dean Herring, Susan Herring, Chuck Jaynes,
Jim Pressley , Jerry Watson, John McCune, Michael Keefe, Joe Pedit,
Robert Fitzgerald, Mark Lang, Bill Russell, Susan Russell, David
Martin, Grace Martin, John Westall, Ken Westall, Mike Foster. If I
missed anyone I apologize.
Another
great event for the community and the Raleigh Astronomy Club! In
addition to the photos in this article, more photos can be found
online at:
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/ncmns_events/album/576460762387353933#page1
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48277553@N00/sets/72157594525289883
Thanks
again to all who helped!
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