Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing the planet Mars and several other objects in 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 *** http://angelfire.com/pokemon2/pirsig/sidewalk.html *** dowenlas@yahoo.com

OTTERSPOOL SIDEWALK EVENT – FRI 28 OCT 2005 - EVENT REPORT - DAVE OWEN

Me and Geoff Regan arrived at about 19:20, in my Micra. Jay Conway tailed us from the LAS Observatory, at Pex Hill, with my 16 inch Dobsonian in his People Carrier.

By about 19:50 the 16 inch mirror box/rocker box assembly had been wheeled about 40 metres to its usual observing site at this location. About 10 minutes later, the telescope was ready to use and the Ring Nebula, M57, was found with Steve Reid's super wide angle 2 inch eyepiece.

Geoff Regan did a 40 minute talk, to about 40 people, in the Visitors' Centre, starting at about 20:30. He used Red Shift 4, Starry Night Pro and Sky for Windows.

The weather was mostly clear, especially for the first hour. The other main objects seen in the 16 inch were M13, the Hercules globular cluster and the planet Mars. We also looked at the double star Albireo, beta Cygni, to test peoples' colour vision. Most of them reported orange and blue, as expected.

At about 21:04, several of us noted a very swift meteor, about magnitude -2, that headed towards the SW horizon, from a point between Deneb and Vega.

The two Liverpool Rangers estimated that the total number of visitors, including LAS members, was about 65.

We started to pack up the 16 inch at about 21:36 and finally left at about 22:00.

Jim Stacey was able to take a few digital camera shots 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