One of the big highlights of our solar viewing season has been the incredible quality of our volunteers and the fact that we’ve been able to call on so many resources to assist at our events. We welcomed two more volunteers to the fold at yesterday’s event: Catherine and Riya. As has been the case throughout all of our sessions, they threw themselves into the role, engaging with our visitors and proving to be valuable additions to our team.
Richard commented at the end of the event that every volunteer team this summer has got on really well with each other right from the start. It’s a fantastic testament to all of our volunteers that this has been the case.
So, this, our 8th successful solar viewing session out of 11 organised (with only 3 succumbing to the weather, in what has been, weather-wise, a less than perfect summer!) was no exception. Once again, we entertained around 600 visitors at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. And once again, as we head towards solar maximum, the Sun didn’t disappoint, with some huge sunspot groups on display and prominences visible all around the solar disc.
Hazy clouds in the early afternoon made the prominences more difficult to view, but the sunspots remained easy to see - even for very young children, who often find it challenging to view objects through a telescope eyepiece. We always had the “Sunspotter” available for those who found looking through the scope difficult or, more often, for those who wanted to linger over the large number of sunspots, all patiently explained by Tim, who supervised this device for almost the entire session.
Our other volunteers were either at the H-alpha telescope or chatting with visitors in the (at times) long queue to view the Sun, keeping them entertained as they waited their turn at the eyepiece. Katie and Richard had tablet devices connected to a couple of Seestar smart telescopes, showing people the sunspots before they got to view them through the H-alpha telescope. Other volunteers encouraged visitors to join the queue, using our various handouts to explain a little about solar physics, where we are in the solar cycle, and answering the many questions from our visitors.
It was lovely to see ROG astronomers Imo and Tania participate in the day, along with some ROG work experience employees who came along to enjoy views of the Sun.
Clouds started to disrupt the session in the last half-hour or so, so we finished at around 3:45pm, after 5 hours of almost uninterrupted viewing.
All in all, it was another great day of solar observing. Thanks to all of our volunteers: Matthew, Riya, Clive, Catherine, Katie, Mike, Stan, Tim, Richard, and Paul.
Our final solar viewing event of the 2024 season is scheduled to take place next weekend, either Saturday 31st August or Sunday 1st September (weather permitting). We hope to see you there!
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