On Saturday, April 26, several astronomers from RAC and CHAOS traveled down to Camp Durant near Carthage, NC to support the Cub-aroo event for the Boy Scouts of America. The event including day and night time observing, as well as lectures. There were five astronomers for solar observing and lecturing, and three astronomers for night time observing. Despite being plagued with clouds, some good views of the Mars and Jupiter.
Mike Keefe Lecturing to Scouts
The solar observing started around 10:30 AM. Mike and Daniel Keefe were already there and were leading a class for the Astronomy Belt loop. Jayme Hanzak (CHAOS) arrived and setup a 90mm refractor for solar viewing as well. There was an awesome sky all day and wound up serving roughly ~200 or so kids in the solar observing area. Also, Daniel did a great job lecturing with his Dad and showing the other kids how to operate binoculars and telescopes. We are all very proud of him as well! Mike’s lecture was highly interactive and enjoyed by all the kids.
By the time evening rolled around we were plagued pesky clouds. Right at 9:00PM the clouds parted enough to get a fix on Polaris and Regulus. The alignments were quickly finished just before the kids arrived. We were absolutely thronged by about 300 excited kids and adults. However, due to cloudiness were were only able to reliably observe Mars and Jupiter
