SLAS does a tremendous job at public outreach and I honestly do try to make one public event a month. This year due to my father-in-law passing, have pneumonia twice and completing my masters and now working on my PhD, time just hasn't let me. I got to three events this year which is the lowest amount I've been too. I'm with Chuck on the sense that the Tuesday meetings have often interfered with classes as most are on Tuesday and Thursday for me. My primary focus the week before new moon and on new moon is dark site observing. There is a small but growing group that is doing this as well. I do think as there are other clubs that are very active in the U.S. with public outreach that do promote one or two local dark site events each month for their members and perhaps one or two major dark site (for us this would be central or southern Utah) trips per year. Personally, I think there is room enough for both but that is just me. I think the ultimate goal is to get people out enjoying the night sky and getting interested in astronomy. That is the key. Thus my efforts at promoting other dark sites. I will be making a day trip on a Saturday after Halloween to take day time pictures of the new sites and a video also. I'll post them up and then people can see what they look like. On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 1:05 AM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Pics of new sites would be most welcome, Jay. Joan, remember that SPOC's compromised status has been known since the mid-70's. It's primary purpose has always been public outreach and easy access for SLAS members, not dark skies. That said, look at the science Patrick has done from there. Pretty damn impressive. _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php
-- Jay Eads