Busy weekend!

I did two events this weekend--the Monrovia event, mentioned below, and Pasadena, on Friday.

This was my first excursion to Pasadena. I met my friends there, who were set up a block west of Delacey, on the north side of Colorado Blvd. It's really busy there compared to Monrovia, but sidewalk space is at a premium. Still, no problem with three telescopes there.

Because I knew I would have a longer distance to haul my stuff, I brought my Celestron Firstscope 80mm eq refractor. I toss the wooden tripod and mount (with counterweight removed) over my shoulder and stuff the OTA, counterweight bar and weight, eyepieces and diagonal into my guitar case. That makes all the necessities transportable in one trip.

I showed Saturn, which, in my little 80eq, is pretty tiny. But it's still recognizable as Saturn, which surprises a lot of people, particularly when you consider that a telescope like the 80eq can be had for about $150.

Mojo counted off 240 viewers during their time in Pasadena. The line was almost continuous.

Yesterday, I brought my 8-inch SCT to Monrovia. I showed a high magnification view of the moon for a while (about 220x), then shifted to Saturn. In this telescope, Saturn is a lot bigger and the rings are obviously more distinct.

The rings are still nearly edge-on, being inclined about 3 degrees to our line of sight. That makes Saturn look a little bit like a meatball with a toothpick through it.

Between 80 and 120 people stopped to view in Monrovia. The official count was lower, but I think Mojo must have missed some viewers because, again, the line was almost continuous between 7:45pm and 9:00pm.

Twice a week is a little exhausting, but I did want to see what Pasadena was like as a sidewalk astronomy location.