Hiyoshidai Elementary School "Let's Enjoy Astronomy"　report

It was very cold but no children made no noise and all behaved very well. They paid attention to us with much interest.
We thank the PTA directors for their help.
Perhaps the devotion of the children and parents made the sky clear.
They could see all the major planets, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as our beautiful earth. Also moon could be seen. We set the date more than one year before so that they could see those planets.
We showed M31, M42, Double Clusters (NGC869, 884), M45, Almach double stars, Castor, ET Cluster, and so on.

		We set up our telescopes as early as possible in order to avoid turbulence in the scopes. Today, we set 14 telescopes and two big binoculars. There were many kinds of equipment.
	The beautiful sunset made us the expect the following fine sky but actually, there came lots of cloud after this.
There were many kinds of equipment. Dobsonians, Refractors, Reflectors, Schmidt Cassegrain and Binoculars。		Participants were surprised to see 180mm refractor, 450mm dobsonian and 400mm dobsonian.

	Today's staff: fifteen of us.
Participants were more than 200 people. All were very intent.	Don't ask us difficult questions! <Laugh!>

We make brochure of several pages of astronomy information.
First, I explain about today's highlights along with the brochure.		Parents were devoured.

The gym was completely full.	We use PC and projector to talk about planets and eclipses.

Prizes of Star Bingo are astrophotos, which they can never buy in supermarkets or department stores. They are very happy to get one.
The winner was the young boy in the kindergarten. He was very proud and said 'it's my treasure!'

It's one of our purposes to make chances of getting family contact. Isn't it a sweet sight that children and parents get close with smiles?		The chairs they were sitting on became their table.

So many winners come up to the front.

	Full of smiles !

Next : Observation in the playground

Sidewalk Astronomy in Japan