On Saturday, the world celebrated "International Observe the Moon Night" as LRO completed one year in the Moon's orbit. Me as part of SPACE group wished to celebrate this international event and the location I picked was My residential society compound. I had informed all the members of the society a day before and requested to gather at the venue at 8:00 pm. I had issued a "76mm Reflector" for this cause along with plossel eyepiece.
It was all cloudy in the evening but I decided to continue with the program and set up the telescope by 8:00 pm. Initially only the small children came to see but were disappointed due to the presence of clouds. So I started explaining them the importance of the event and reason for celebrations. Then I showed them the telescope and by the time moon started peeping out of the clouds. This was the time to point the telescope towards the Moon and I asked them to form a line. the kids were so enthusiastic that they immediately formed a queue and started waiting for their turn.
I centered the moon in the eyepiece and then the observer started shouting WOW!!! as if they have seen something unusual. Many kids in society are also part of SPACE CLUBS at various schools so they were more excited to see. This way around 30 school kids and their parents had participated in this event.
Almost all of them had seen the moon for 4-5 times and every time they were surprised or amazed as this was for the first time they were looking through the telescope and also this was the first time they were looking at their nearest celestial neighbor so closely. They were thrilled to see the craters, maria and also the terminator. I explained them about craters, rotation and revolution and some facts about Moon.
By 9:00 pm, the sky was covered by clouds again and this was the call to pack up the instruments as there was no point waiting for the cloud to move. Still all the kids were pushing me to wait for 5 minutes, each time I pick the telescope bag. I also had plans to show them Jupiter and its Moons but due to clouds, it was not possible.
Sneh Kesari
Educator
SPACE
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