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Public Star PartiesAFY offers a Public Star Party on the third Saturday of the month, March through November, weather permitting. If the weather is bad, the following (fourth) Saturday serves as our official rain-date. 'Bad' means rain or heavy cloud cover; or a forecast of rain or clouds. Because our members plan for these nights all year long, this is the best opportunity for the public to see what AFY has to offer. We generally have a wide variety of telescopes every public night. Commonly, you will see a 4" and a 12" catadioptric, a 6" reflector, 10" and 12" Dobsonians. Being a hobby, you can bet that every month will bring a new collection. The public is encouraged to bring their own telescopes and binoculars. But the best instrument is plain old human eyes. Bring a lawn chair and watch for a few minutes and you will see stars, nebula, satellites, shooting stars and our own Milky Way Galaxy. On clear nights, it's possible to see Andromeda -- another galaxy some 2 million light years away! Click here for information about how light sources affect astronomy.
Educational ProgrammingAFY has hosted and participated in several educational programs for various groups. We have hosted programs for the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts and various summer-camps; given programs at St. Peters High School and at the Ocie Hill Community Center. If you would like for us to present a structured program, just email afy@columbus.rr.com or talk to any member at a star party. There are no formal requirements for programming. The Scout groups generally provide merit badge requirements that we can work from. Public school teachers generally have an astronomy curriculum outline to work from. Or you can just provide us with an age group and we will make a general presentation. We encourage everyone interested in a program to come to our public night. Most members plan to observe those evenings and so they are generally the best opportunity to get an idea of what AFY has to offer. If public night doesn't work for your group, we suggest a weekend night -- again, to maximize involvement. We would also encourage that your group come out to Malabar Farm, even if it's not scheduled for public night. This is a very dark sky location with a big parking lot. If you have a dark sky location in mind, let us know because we would love to see it!
What Can Astronomy Teach Us?For many people, the big draw of astronomy is the stunning beauty of the night sky. There really is nothing like it on Earth. As you spend time in a dark-sky location, and your eyes adapt to see fainter objects, you quickly learn that there is a whole lot more to space than stars. Historically, astronomy has been one of the persistent driving forces behind our technological evolution. Just prior to this century, most humans saw the night sky as a source of superstition and the enforcer of fate. The science of astronomy has laid most of that kind of superstition to rest. Where a solar eclipse was once feared and vilified, we can now predict them years and advance. People from all over the planet gather to observe eclipses and to acknowledge both the synchronicity of the event and our ability to see it coming. Lastly, astronomy is a hands-on science that imparts upon us at least a limited perception of the immense scale of the universe. It doesn't take more than a few nights in front of a telescope to give anyone a good idea of just how tiny our entire existence really is. I can look to the south through my telescope and examine the craters where humans landed on the moon. Then turn the telescope north and look at pair of galaxies whose light left its source millions of years before there were any humans on this planet. There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on all of beaches on earth. "Sometimes
I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is
quite staggering." |
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