Urban Starfest 2007

Session name: 20071110.1900

The skies were clear for Urban Starfest, an annual astronomy event organized by the Amateur Astronomers Association (AAA) and the Urban Park Rangers. Many of the AAA members showed up with their optics ranging from small to large. Refractors, reflectors, Schmidt-Cassegrain, and binoculars swinging from neck straps were shared with maybe 100 persons that passed through.

Jan Kratochvil shares photographs of the Urban Starfest 2007.

Comet Holmes was a popular object as a naked eye object and through various optics. Personally, I liked the 7x50 view which showed the comet right beside the Alpha Persei Association. I showed one person where to look and point the bins. After locating it they would pass the bins to someone else and tell them where and what to look for. Cries of "Eureka" marked off repeated successes. This would continue for half a dozen or more people at a time and at different times over the course of the session. (And I didn't lost my bins.)