Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing 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 27 OCT 2006 - EVENT REPORT - DAVE OWEN

Me and Geoff Regan arrived at about 19:10, in my Micra. Jim Lawler and John Simcock tailed us from the LAS Observatory, at Pex Hill, with the LAS 8 inch Dobsonian in his Volvo Estate. John Simcock brought his 25x100 binoculars. Within 10 minutes we were able to set up a gazebo. This provided some protection from dew but there was no rain to worry about. It was also fairly calm, with no strong winds. Unfortunately, there was rather a lot of cloud. We had to be patient and make the most of any breaks that came along.

Brendan Martin was able to set up his 10 reflector with its encoder system. Unfortunately, this can be quite tricky to align if there is a lot of cloud, as there was. Dave Bentley set up his 85 mm f6.9 refractor.

Two Park Rangers arrived at 19:20 to open up the Visitors Centre. This allowed Geoff Regan to do a slide show to about 20 people indoors. The Rangers were also very helpful, and imaginative, in reducing the light pollution from one of the lamps that was uncomfortably close to our telescopes.

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.

At about 20:40, Brendan was able to see M27, the Dumnbbell Nebula, in his telescope. Ten minutes later, Graham Roberts was able to see Comet Swan 2006 M4 in 10x50 binoculars. I discovered that the finder telescope on the LAS 8 inch reflector could not cope with the local light pollution as it did not have a decent dewcap. I quickly improvised one with a laminated sheet of A4 paper and some insulation tape.

At about 21:05, the slideshow ended and the sky cleared sufficiently to enable us to see M13, the great globular star cluster in Hercules, M31, the Andromeda galaxy, as well as its companion galaxy M32 and the strongly coloured double star Albireo, beta Cygni.

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

We started to pack up at 21:45 and finally left at about 22:20.

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