“Party Like a Scientist” – New NRC Opening

The Raleigh Astronomy Club particpated in the grand opening even for the new Nature Research Center in downtown Raleigh.  This was a 24-hour event with an attendance of the over 70,000!  Although the skies were not always cooperative, there was a lot of interest in the telescopes, with the wait times on the rooftop observing exceeding 1 hour at times!  We thank all the members of the public who attended and all our volunteers who gave up a night of sleep to help share astronomy with Raleigh!

The Raleigh Astronomy Club was set up in three locations.  First, there were telescopes set up on Jones Street (which was closed to traffic for the duration of the event.  These folks braved the cool temperatures in the early morning hours and stayed set up until the rain came in about 2pm on Saturday.  We would also like to recognize some of the students from the North Carolina School of Science and Math who volunteered to help out with this station.

The second area was located on the Green Roof of the new building.  Space was limited, so RAC was only able to set up three telescopes.  Doug Lively, Gary Scott, and Deven Lively worked many hours helping people get a view of Venus and Mars, when they were not dodging clouds.  A number of attendees went up on the green roof to watch the Sunrise on Saturday morning, and it was great, with some nice crepuscular rays.

The final area was the new Space Observation Laboratory.  As you may know, the NRC is not just a museum, but also a working research center.  The new astronomy research alb was open to the public and RAC members helped introduce the public to the exhibits, the work being done in the lab, and to some citizen sicen projects that  anyone can do.

Thanks again for everyone’s great efforts to help make this event a success!