Think and Drink with the Extinct
Russell Swaney • 21 December 2019
CVAS at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The .Cleveland Museum of Natural History holds a monthly event called "Think and Drink with the Extinct"
December's theme was "Winter Solstice".
CVAS had our Table Top Display and 2 telescopes there (one that the visitors could "control" from a Planetarium program).
One of our members, Bruce Bream, brought two items for the CVAS display. One was a 3D printed model of Stonehenge showing the orientation of the setting sun at the Winter Solstice. The realistic model was downloaded from Thingiverse.com (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:958721). The other was a set of tactile constellations of Uma, Umi, and Cas displayed on a turntable. It readily demonstrated rotation of the constellations about the North Star. Visitors could also see how both Uma and Cas could be used to find the North Star. Bruce has the tactile constellations freely available to download and print (http://www.rovingbits.com/StarCoins/index.htm).
The attendance that night was 603 guests.
Saturday, December 21st. There was no event scheduled at Observatory Park, but we sent an email out at 3 pm saying we'd be there. 6 CVAS Members and about 24 members of the public showed up., We rolled back the roof on the Oberle Telescope and pointed at M42, the Orion Nebula. The 4 young (only a million years or so old) stars of the Trapezium lite up the nebula with a view that filled the eyepiece. I've heard it described as "stars encased in a globe of luminescent fog" - and I think that's a really good description. Marty Mullet provided a Planetarium show to those too cold (or didn't want to climb the ladder). Pictures from Steve Fishman (without a tripod!)