STARLOG

DRIVEWAY OUTREACH

APRIL 14, 2019


Today was mostly clear, but there was a strong breeze. As the afternoon wore on, the breeze dissipated and I thought about setting up my telescope. The moon phase was waxing gibbous, so I knew it would be washing out a lot of the sky. Even so, Taking a few photographs of the moon itself would be fun and relaxing.

Shortly before sunset, I set up all my gear on the driveway. In a surge of inspiration, I grabbed my dry erase signboard and wrote "SEE THE MOON!" on both sides and set it out by the side of the road.

While waiting to see whether any of the evening walkers would stop and take a look, I attached my phone to the eyepiece and started taking a few pictures of our nearest celestial neighbor.

The waxing gibbous moon.

Gorgeous!

Before darkness had set in, a car pulled up and two young women got out. "May we look through your telescope?" one of them asked.

"Of course!" I replied. I still had the phone attached to the eyepiece, so they were both able to see it at once.

They glanced up in the sky and then back down at my phone, taking in all the craters and mountain ranges. I jiggled the scope a bit to prove that they really were looking at the Moon. "That is so cool!"

I pinched my phone screen and zoomed in the image a bit, then we watched as the Moon drifted across the view. I explained this was due to the Earth's rotation.

One of them introduced herself as Hannah and said she was going to be my neighbor when school started back up this fall. The other girl was her friend Brie. I explained that anytime they saw me outside in the driveway with my telescope, they were more than welcome to come over and take a look.

"That's great," Hannah exclaimed. "I think you're going to have a new friend."

I removed my phone from the adapter and let Hannah attach her own phone. After a minute or two of fiddling with the adjustment knobs, she had a nice view of the Moon on her own phone and began snapping photos like crazy.

They hung around a few more minutes, thanked me, and then left. I reattached my phone to the eyepiece and played around with trying to get some high-mag views.

Closeup shot of Mare Imbrium with major features marked, including the landing site of a Chinese rover.

I didn't have any more visitors that evening and was getting a little bored with just looking at the Moon. Then I had an interesting idea: If the public wasn't coming to me, I could go to the public. I began fumbling with my phone, looking for how to turn on Facebook Live. I had never used it before, so it took me a few minutes to get it figured out.

I fed the live view through my telescope to my Facebook feed. Almost immediately, a couple of my friends came online to take a look. I kept the feed going for about 35 minutes, answering questions, and showing off sites such as the Orion Nebula, Messier 41 and a few other things beside the Moon.

Facebook Live video.

In all, 11 people joined me in sharing my view through the telescope. This isn't a big number, I know, but considering it was my first time using Facebook Live and that I just turned on the feed unannounced, I was pleased with the results. I'll have to try it again in the near future and see if I can improve on it a little.