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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:06:49 GMT -7
Posted by: 58limited Aug 2 2014, 01:03 PM Awesome, I bet there was something in your eyes when you read those notes!
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:07:36 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 2 2014, 08:36 PM I have to admit that I was surprised. It does the heart good that someone actually enjoyed it enough to send a note. Perhaps I'm actually doing some good.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:07:57 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Aug 3 2014, 04:09 AM But how did Natalie (I love that spelling!) leave before completion, did that ruin everyones dark adaption? I love these litle details that notes like this bring out
ive been meaning to ask RW how long does it take to dark adapt from the bright desert sun to maximum eyeball capacity
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:08:22 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 3 2014, 10:28 AM It was a private show for their one family. Six of them packed into one car, so when one had to go, all had to go. I'm not at all sure if the cards are a result of them feeling bad about leaving early, but I actually think it's more of being brought up proper. Whatever instigated them, it was nice to ge them. Made me feel better about them leaving early.
As to dark adaption time. As I have gotten older I've noted that I take more time to dark adapt, so I did some timed experiments to see just how long it would take me to see those elusive 6th magnitude stars and Milky Way. The idea being that if I could see them, most in my audience could see them as well.
I have found that I need a minimum of five and better yet ten minutes to really get dark adapted. Once the doors are closed for a show I start by going back in time and view the Earth centered universe and a small discourse as to why people believed the Earth stood still. Then we move on to modern thinking and move the Sun to the center to show what really is happening. After that, I bring out the planetarium Sun as it was at noon on the show day. As I run the Sun to sunset I talk about the speed of light as the measuring stick that is used in the cosmos. At sunset I can point out that the Sun only sets directly west on two days of the year and then go into the three twilights. I am usually about ten minutes into the program and when I introduce "the true beauty of the night sky" it is indeed an "ohhaaaaa" moment.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:08:49 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 3 2014, 12:31 PM Did I mention that a fellow showed up yesterday a week early thinking the show ws then. I guess folks love my shows so much they can't wait!
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:09:13 GMT -7
Posted by: moonmagic Aug 4 2014, 12:18 PM Over time you should expect to get such thank you notes from adults and children. If you ever have a class of elementary school children (public, private or home-school) you will be pleasantly surprised at the many things they remember. Most teachers will have the children write you a note and/or draw you a picture. You will get a real charge out of them and you learn what seems to have the most impact on them too.
It is what ALL of this is about. You are providing one of the positive experiences that sometimes ignites that special spark that some people wind up carrying through their entire lives. A perfect "win-win" situation. mm
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:09:42 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 4 2014, 12:38 PM Had another small group that were a friends of a friend. Unbelievably I went for 80 minutes once again and everyone loved it. I'm now up to 34 people for next Saturdays show and still have a week to go. It's looking more and more like my first rehearsal will be my first show. I need to get out to the dome today and start installing some more projectors. I'm even using some of my A3P auxiliary units as the Earth land mass unit will put out a image of the continents and make the celestial equator easy to understand but also how high overhead the Sun is during the summer. Combining that with some of the line projectors to show the Sun's path during the solstices as well as the equinox will go a long way toward explaining the seasons. I also plan to use a globe with a Sun source light to present the area a given amount of sunlight covers in both summer and winter.
The next show after this will be the constellations of Summer in September and then constellations of Fall in October. I think I will run "The Christmas Star" in both November and December if I can get my act together and get the program together. The same goes for all of this stuff.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:10:24 GMT -7
Posted by: mrgare5050 Aug 5 2014, 06:04 AM QUOTE(Ron Walker @ Aug 3 2014, 07:31 PM) * Did I mention that a fellow showed up yesterday a week early thinking the show ws then. I guess folks love my shows so much they can't wait!
I would preserve that guys name FOREVER as MR RELATIVITY - as in the limerick from A Brief History of Time
there was a young lady of Wight who traveled much faster than light she departed one day in a relative way and arrived on the previous night
this guy left one of your shows and then somehow arrived a week earlier!
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:10:47 GMT -7
Posted by: moonmagic Aug 5 2014, 07:57 AM I often show up for "Happy Hour" before it actually starts. Does this count too? mm
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:11:22 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 5 2014, 10:18 AM QUOTE(moonmagic @ Aug 5 2014, 07:57 AM) * I often show up for "Happy Hour" before it actually starts. Does this count too? mm
You just want to be first in line. That way you can orbit (wasn't that the name of on "Outer Limits" episode) around and get more chances at happy hour. Or, "The Early Bird Catches More Bottle With Worm In It". I think I've been working too much, or perhaps it's because I have this keg all to myself. Where is some help when I need it?
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:11:53 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 5 2014, 10:29 AM QUOTE(mrgare5050 @ Aug 5 2014, 06:04 AM) * I would preserve that guys name FOREVER as MR RELATIVITY - as in the limerick from A Brief History of Time
there was a young lady of Wight who traveled much faster than light she departed one day in a relative way and arrived on the previous night
this guy left one of your shows and then somehow arrived a week earlier!
Actually I felt bad for him as I believe he came up from Phoenix which is a fair distance. On top of that we were about to have our first real monsoon downpour in about ten minutes which tends to turn the roads into canals. Perhaps that is what Percival saw when he saw the canali on Mars. The streets had turned to rivers on some of the days he looked. I hope to see him back this Saturday.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:12:25 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 11 2014, 04:13 PM Even I don't know where to put my different posts bur since I seem to be placing things about my various show here, I will continue to do so. I did three of my new shows on Saturday, "The Reason For The Seasons". Since it was something like 10:30 at night on Friday before I got some new projectors wired in and aligned, I never had a chance to do the show. I have collected a bunch of different projectors from various places and have been concerting them over to LED's. Many of these are from Spitz machines. I added an Earth globe projection device which made it very easy to show the equator as well as the tropics which made the seasons program very understandable. Another was a constellation outline for Perseus as I wanted to talk a bit about the upcoming meteor shower. These are nice small optical projectors but do not come close to the quality of the Minolta ones. Basically the image does not stay in focus across this rather large outline. If it is sharp in the center the outside edges tried to bloom a bit and visa versa. I will probably use these for the smaller outlines like Lira the harp or the northern crown. If I can't find any other Minolta projectors I will try and find some good lenses and copy them. The first show was my first rehearsal and I was a bit surprised to find my entire explanation of the seasons took only about twelve minutes....what to do now? I did manage to get some thoughts together and stretch the show to 55 minutes. The next two presentations started with my standard show so I was about 20 minutes in before I interjected the seasons part and then returned to finish the night out. Both shows actually went over be about seven minutes. All in all everything went well and I added another 34 people to my list bringing the total to 204 visitors. Again, I find this a mind boggling number as I have not advertised at all. I just told those few neighbors that were interested in my building project. I thinks some of you told me this would happen but a number of visitors were very interested in "Bob" (the name my projector wanted) so I started asking if any would be interested in a show about how Bob worked. The interest was indeed phenomenal so I will get to work on that show immediately as I know Bob like the back of my hand. It will probably be the one for September.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:16:18 GMT -7
Posted by: moonmagic Aug 13 2014, 04:04 PM More congrats on yet another show topic. I've always felt that the Spitz GEOCENTRIC EARTH projector had some good uses. I don't remember it ever being a sold option for the A-1's or A-2's but I do remember it on almost all of the A3P's, A-4's, 512's and even 1024's. I also know that it was an option on the STP's although that one actually required two globes, one for each end of the projector so that had to be aligned just right or the images would overlap one another unless you had a separate control for each globe.
I was also always fond of Spitz's "Astronomical Triangle." These were adjustable such that you could play "connect the stars" such as showing the "Summer Triangle Stars" or tracing out other star patterns.
Spitz and his designers did some clever things over the years, at a price many more organizations could afford. mm
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:17:02 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 13 2014, 07:18 PM Ah yes, the "astronomical triangle" or as I call them "line projectors", yes I used two of them to place the two tropics up in the sky as I ran the Sun around on the two solstices. That way it was very easy to see how much longer the Sun as up during the summer vs the winter. I also used a standard Earth globe to show the angle of a Sun beam (from a flashlight) and how it spread out over a larger area in the winter then in the summer. So not only is the Sun out for a longer time in the summer but the rays are more direct and concentrated.
Much fun. Today I began work on what will be my combo standard video projection as well as full dome projector. It will be interesting to see how that comes out.
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Post by Ron Walker on Aug 30, 2022 21:17:33 GMT -7
Posted by: Ron Walker Aug 13 2014, 07:26 PM QUOTE(Ron Walker @ Aug 5 2014, 10:29 AM) * Actually I felt bad for him as I believe he came up from Phoenix which is a fair distance. On top of that we were about to have our first real monsoon downpour in about ten minutes which tends to turn the roads into canals. Perhaps that is what Percival saw when he saw the canali on Mars. The streets had turned to rivers on some of the days he looked. I hope to see him back this Saturday.
He came back! Now there's dedication.
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