Stacy,
What a great story! Alex and Sam must be really happy to have an Aunt
who gives such a wonderful gift and then spends the time to teach them
how to use it. It sounds like we'll have a couple of new Tac members in
a few years.
Rob
Stacy Jo McDermott wrote:
> Hello All,While this is not quite an extensive observing report, it
> is something that I wanted to share with you all. For the Christmas
> holidays, I made the trek back to Colorado to do my duty as a loving
> daughter and sister to visit family and provide an island of sanity to
> my beloved sibling. She has two girls, 10 and 6. My gift to my
> beautiful and intelligent nieces was the Orion 4.5 inch Dobsonian
> telescope. We decided that I should present it to them prior to
> Christmas as I was leaving on 12/26. The package which contained the
> telescope had been sitting in the living room for about two weeks
> during which time neither niece bothered to inspect it as it had my
> name on the address label. Much to their delight, last Thursday
> night, I told them that the boxes were indeed for them. So we got down
> to business and assembled the telescope together. Took about an hour
> because Auntie here couldn't find their father's tools off-hand.
> However, once the tools were located we proceeded to assemble. First
> light was that night (12/20) with the Moon being the first object. 10
> year old Alex took the light-bucket like a fish to water. Her younger
> sister Sam, 6, thought it was too much fun but has a shorter attention
> span when it comes to aligning the mirrors and the spotting scope (not
> to mention, she like me, thought it was way too cold at 25 degrees to
> be out.) However, Alex and I stayed out until auntie's face had no
> feeling left. That night and the ensuing nights afterward, we gazed
> upon the Moon with it's crators, Jupiter, Saturn, Orion's Nebula,
> Rigel and the 7 sisters. We had sessions every night through
> Sunday. The one thing that warmed the cockles of my stargazing heart
> is when Alex asked me to help her design her very own observing log!
> It was totally her idea that she should note down what she sees with
> the telescope. She was very thorough in what information she thought
> she would need and we designed the log sheets on the computer. The
> next day we went to Kinko's to make copies. She also decided that she
> should have a dedicated binder for her observing logs. Alex plans to
> show her teacher at school what she is doing with the telescope and
> maybe even bring it in for show-and-tell. She is an observer at heart
> and I couldn't be more pleased. She may be joining me out here next
> summer to go on a TAC observing trip. Hope everyone had a wonderful
> holiday. I certainly did but am glad to be back in the Bay Area where
> the climate is more suited to my liking. Clear skies (and here's
> hoping) Stacy
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Dec 27 2001 - 22:31:36 MST