Report from the Sidewalk

Saterday night 3/27/04, it was not the best of viewing nights,
I had gone up to my street corner after recovering during the
past week after the last saterday nights event.

While the sky was clear but with a front moving through it
was not a good viewing night for the planets. It was so bad I
couldn't get a good image of Jupiter for more than a second or
two, so I mostly stayed on the moon. But by 8pm I had to pack
up and head home, the northen wind was worst and it kept moving
the scope itself. But with the people that did show up, they got
to see the moon ( even if it was in the nose bleed area ).

Sunday night was far better, no wind and the few high clouds
didn't hang around after dark. Most of the time I stayed on
Jupiter, but did show Venus and even Saturn and moon ( up in the
nose bleed area still ). I only had one trouble, while talking to
one group and handing out some stuff JPL had sent me, one kid
started twisting the wing nuts on the mirror cell!

Had to re-aline the scope and telrad, and then gave a tour of the
sky to the ones who waited. Today I'll change back to normal nuts
on those bolts. It was a slow weekend, with maybe 30 mins or so
between persons or groups.

Had one lady with her son pull in to stop, they've seen me out there
for years ( come may it'll be 6 years here ) and at last they stopped
to see what I was doing. They'd never looked threw a scope before
and will now stop more offen.

One guy who was walking by stopped and talked a tiny bit after
seeing Jupiter, he asked if I ever got any "Kooks" stopping
by ... HaHaHa, told him that I've had just about every kind of
person stop by, but that's part of the deal and it makes for some
good talks / debates at times.

Oh ya, one nice thing about using a Dob, no collector plate to fog up
either.

Oh, in case I forgot to post it, that street lighting bill on the
local vote, IT FAILED by over 65% of the vote against it. Just maybe
those flyers I passed out on my walks, the two newspaper arctials,
and once the Beast was driveable, me driving around with signs on it
just might have helped kill it.


The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
The Voice in the Desert


--
Dragons Must Fly when Thread's in the Sky

www.starlords.org



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.614 / Virus Database: 393 - Release Date: 3/5/04