equipment for school star parties

I'm looking for ideas on rigs that can be used for school star parties. The main requirements are that the scope be driven in RA, not cost a whole lot, and be usable with inexpensive eyepieces.

I want to be able to just set these up, pointed at the moon, Jupiter, etc, and then not worry about them. If I'm feeling ambitious on a particular evening I might also bring a nicer scope that I can babysit personally.

I'm thinking two rigs at a total cost of $600-$1000.

Thanks,

Duane

I do eight or ten of these school or scout events a year. Crowds are sometimes only 20 people but the main events are generally a crowd of 50 kids pluis 50 parents.

For a small crowd I set up three scopes all on EQ2/CG3 equatoral mounts with RA motor drive.
Celestron G5 5" SCT, Stellarvue 78mm AT1010 and Orion ST90. I have a wide assortment of eyepieces, from Orions to ultimas to UO orthos to TV plossls and SWA's, Radians and Konigs, they all get used. I also mount 2 or 3 pair of binoculars on Parallelograms or just straight up tripods, everthing from 10x50's, 15x70's to Fujinon 16x70's and giant 20x80's.

For the larger crowds of 100 people, in addition to all the above I also bring my 6" Skyview Deluxe Newt and my 6" celestron 150 refractor and another 2 or 3 tripods with binoculars. For a crowd of 100 people I'll have 5 main scopes all driven and 6 mounted binoculars. I also bring two old small "baby scopes on spindle legs" the kids can play around with. Good for finding the moon if it's up.

You want to try and have enough equipment so that no more than 4 or 5 people are standing around at any piece idle. Once you get people moving around in groups, rather than standing in one big long line at the big scope, everybody will soon realize they will get to use all the equipment and see all the sights. It works really well for me and the crowd.

Also, don't forget you need a folding table to lay out all your charts and eyepiece cases and misc. stuff. And you need 2 or 3 step stools for the little kids. When I leave my house to go set up for a night show, my van is pack as solid as a sardine can.

Takes me about an hour to set up before the crowd gets there and about an hour to knock down and pack up at the end of the night.

The ST90 setup can be had for real cheap. Mounted binoculars are a must, people find them so easy to use.

No matter how big or how small you end up doing an event, go for it. Kids will never forget it.

edz

Duane,

Are you doing these star parties alone or with help from a local astronomy club? I realize some people do these things alone and think they have to have lots of equipment. I've been to two local star parties at elementary schools recently when they had a science fair. On both occasions 4 club members showed up with their scopes to serve about 100 students and up to 200 parents. We had lines but that was mostly because each of us chose a different subject so everybody wanted to see through every scope.

If you are doing it alone I wouldn't get too concerned about what kind of equipment you have except of course RA drive. Most of these kids are so tickled to death to see through a telescope they don't really care whether it's a 4" refractor, 5" Mak-Cassegrain, or an 8" Newtonion. Even with RA drive you are probably still going to have to keep checking to make sure it is tracking O.K. and DEC will need occasional adjustment.

Thanks for all of the excellent advice. I honestly don't know if I'll be doing this alone or with help. I've always wanted to do this, but have been concerned about damaging my "good" equipment. I'll be moving to a new city soon, and I figure this will also be a good vehicle for getting to know teachers and principals.

Last year I went to a star party at our kids' school. They had two pretty nice scopes set up. They had an 8" SCT trained on Saturn, and a 3"-4" achromat on Venus. Both were on eq mounts, but the magnifications used were very low because the scopes weren't being driven. I'm sure it was a great experience for many people, but I think it could have been better with very little extra effort.

Duane