Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing the night sky, if clear. There will also be an illustrated talk on astronomy.

This event is free, and is open to all members of the public.

For more information contact:-

Liverpool Ranger Service - 0151 225 5910

Liverpool Astronomical Society - http://www.liv.ac.uk/~ggastro/home.html

Geoff Regan, Observatory Director - 0151 292 7165

Dave Owen, LAS Sidewalk Astronomers - 07778 454524

OTTERSPOOL SIDEWALK EVENT – FRI 8 OCT 2004 - EVENT REPORT - DAVE OWEN

After watching mostly blue skies all day we were quite hopeful that this event might produce some clear skies that would enable us to try out Geoff Regan's newly built 12 inch f5.5 Dobsonian.

Me and Geoff arrived at about 19:00 to find that Graham Roberts and his sister Pam had already arrived. Jim Stacey arrived at about this time and he decided to set up his 8 inch GoTo reflector next to Geoff's 12 inch Dobsonian.

The two Liverpool Parks Rangers had already opened the Visitors Centre and were able to supply hot tea and cold biscuits, to supplement our own grub/hot drinks. Lew Brown and John Simcock arrived at about 20:00 and set up a 4.5 inch reflector and a 90mm ETX telescope respectively. Geoff had also brought along his 4.5 inch f4 "Bowling Ball" telescope, which also saw action in last week's Sidewalk Event at Ainsdale.

From about 20:00 to 20:25 and again from about 21:05 until 21:25 I did two talks inside the Visitors Centre. The audience for the second talk was slightly smaller than for the first. Was this because people wanted to enjoy more time with the telescopes? or had I been a less than engrossing speaker first time around?

Despite quite a large amount of light pollution, we were only about 20 feet from the front window of the Otterpool Pub, we had good views, with the 12 inch, of M57, M27, M13, M31, M32 and probably serveral other objects that I missed seeing as I entertained the public indoors.

The Rangers estimated that the total number of visitors, including LAS members, was about 50.

We finally left at about 22:00, but it was such a good night that several of us lingered at the Pex Hill Observatory until about 03:30, mostly using Geoff's 12 inch Dobsonian. In these darker skies it performed much better than at Otterspool; where, amongst other difficulties, we found it almost impossible to retain good dark adaption for our eyes.

Jim Stacey was able to take a few digital camera shots, several of which are displayed below:-

HOW TO FIND OTTERSPOOL VISITOR CENTRE - Maps from www.multimap.com

OTTERSPOOL VISITOR CENTRE MAP 1

OTTERSPOOL VISITOR CENTRE MAP 2

OTTERSPOOL VISITOR CENTRE MAP 3