"Newbie Night" at the Astronomy Club

We tried something new at the Astronomy club last night, at the suggestion of one of our members, Ed, who is in the center of this photograph.  He thought it would be a good idea to have a "Newbie Night" for people who might want to visit the club and ask questions about astronomy, and maybe how to get started in astronomy.  That part of the meeting started an hour before our regular meeting.

We had no idea if people would be interested in such a meeting, so we were astounded when so many people showed up.  There was a father with his young son, who had a small telescope tucked under his arm!  We had young people and older people, and a number of our members would sit and talk with each of the new visitors to answer their questions or to demonstrate how our telescopes worked.

The newbie part only lasted an hour before we went outside and had an observing session with our telescopes, showing our new visitors the night sky.  This morning I received this email from the father of the young son:  "Good morning Ken:  I wanted to thank you for taking time with my son Ryan and I last night. We had a wonderful time and learned a lot. My son was fascinated with everything. When we got home he immediately googled images of the Orion nebula. I could hardly get him to bed.  Please thank Doug as well as he spent a lot of time with us and answered a lot of my son's questions. Thanks again,  Chris"  Wow, that email certainly made my day!