Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri

ASEM’s first public fund-raiser was a Trivia Challenge held on Saturday, May 17. 2008 at the Elk’s Lodge in O’Fallon, Missouri About 90 people attended and, by all accounts, had a great time.  Master of Ceremonies and Quiz Master, Bob Judd set the pace for the theme Stars of the Universe with his costume as some sort of alien life form.  Special thanks go to all who participated and helped, but especially Bob and Yvonne Roe who worked so hard recruiting players and door prizes.

A view of the participants

Bob with Heads or Tails winner

First Place Winners led by Brad Griffith

Second Place winners led by Jim Twellman

The skies didn’t do us any favors on this warm night. Satellite projections showed some possibility of clouds clearing around 8 or 9pm, but it did not happen.

Despite the greater than 75% cloud cover (we often cancel at 75%+), John Furlong as well as Jim and Ann Trull (and myself) brought scopes and binos and crossed our fingers on the weather. Nothin’ doin’. We set up shop around 6:30 pm and had some ‘customers’ at 7pm.

Although the skies were totally cloudy, a nice crowd showed up anyway. About 70 overall with more than half from Francis Howell middle school eighth graders. We showed students and their parents (along with other guests) how our scopes worked, and many looked thru them at neighboring barns and sheds about 3/4 mile away until it got too dark to do so. We also described some of the things we would be able to see if the skies were clear.

Most of the 8th graders and their families packed it out between 8:30 and 9:00. Our die-hards hung in with us until around 9:30, and then some of us also started packing it in. Tom Richards then showed up, and gave some of us hope for a short window of clear skies, which came in around 10:15. We still had plenty of moonshine (!) so it wasn’t as dark as many would like. We had some quick views of Saturn (very nice and steady!), as well as some double stars Iota Cancri and Izar. Unfortunately, at around 10:45 the dew was strong - looking around us we noticed the fog had rolled in big-time. So, all was packed up and out of there around 11:10.

Despite the total shut-out by Mother Nature, we did manage to have a crowd and we did manage to show them a few things. We are hoping that Ma Nature will be more kindly to us at our next event - Saturday June 7th at Klondike Park near Augusta MO.

Jim T.

PS. This part of the park is open 24×7. Powered outlets are available at the telescope pads, and restrooms are open and available. Plan on using this new site whenever you’d like to get the telescope out and the streetlight in your front yard is too much for you. A few of us showed up last Saturday and Sunday nights. Bring your scope out, you never know who you might run into out there!