CMS Night at the Observatory
On the evening of Friday, September 17, elementary students and parents visited the Cincinnati Observatory Center. It looked as though Ivan was going to ruin our chances of observing the night sky with telescopes, but the weather turned in our favor and it turned out to be a wonderful night!

As we arrived, there were telescopes out on the lawn to view the waxing crescent moon. Inside the classroom, the phases of the moon and the "Earthshine" on the moon were demonstrated and explained. Due to the mysterious absence of a computer cable, we missed out on a slide show, but ...we all check out the latest Hubble images on our home computers, right? Our presenter, Mr. Paul Nohr, handled this unexpected situation well and took us outside to locate constellations, aided by his handy green laser pointer!
With the big telescope, everyone had a chance to see globular cluster M13; far fewer people viewed the next several objects, which included a binary star system, a double binary star system, a ring nebula and the Andromeda galaxy!

Meanwhile, out on the lawn.... (Anyone who was out there care to fill us in? See anything nifty with the lawn telescopes?)

The Cincinnati Observatory Center has Astronomy Nights nearly every Thursday and Friday night, but you must have reservations, and they tend to book up rather quickly! Also, this Satruday, September 25, is ScopeOut 2004! This annual event at the observatory will be from noon-10:30 p.m. -- it's a great event to keep abreast of astronomy news and to ask questions of astronomers...or to find out about telescopes! It's a family event, too! For more information, visit www.cincinnatiobservatory.org!


- posted by Heidi @ Thursday, September 23, 2004

 
Preprimary Career Aspirations Revisited
Below are preprimary career choices as of May 2004:

Grace H. - astronaut

Alexandra H. - "help sick people get better with a shot on their arm and take a telescope to check their back and tummy and give them shots on their legs"

Lillian D. - teacher

Teresa V. - ballerina

Lucy K. -mommy

George M. - "sweep all sorts of stuff using a vacuum cleaner"

Aubrey K. - mailperson

Aaliyah B. - singing, reading stories, and telling jokes

Cole I. - teach little people about sharks, and hunt and study sharks

Chas K. - undetermined

Savannah S. - dog walker

Katie S. - nurse

Lily H. - artist

Katie B. - work at Krogers putting food into bags

Sam C. - scientist, study in Antarctica

Savanna B. - Britney Spears, veterinarian

Anna J. - waitress at "the kind of restaurant where they are on roller skates"

Sarah K. - art teacher

- posted by Heidi @ Thursday, September 23, 2004