Tag Archives: star parties

Second Annual Survey of RASC Centres About Public Observing Events Held In 2018

PolyWogg.ca
March 28 2019

This is the second annual survey of RASC Centres about their public observing events and pertains to events held in 2018. The survey has been streamlined from last year to more clearly focus on public observing events rather than outreach in general or members-only observing, but still retaining links to both. Now, the survey only contains 14 short questions broken down as:

  • Q1 RASC Centre profile;
  • Q2-Q6 Public observing offerings in that Centre;
  • Q7-Q11 Infrastructure at public observing events
  • Q12-14 What worked in 2018 or what’s planned for 2019

For last year’s survey, I attempted to track down the public observing representative for each of the RASC Centres, and emailed them to invite them to participate. For this year’s survey, I used the old email list, our National Representative shared the survey invite with the National Committee members, and we made links with the Youth Coordinator whose duties also link to to public observing, youth outreach, and learning events.

Q1. Which RASC Centre do you represent?

All possible Centres were listed as simple click boxes, and 14 Centres responded including:

Ottawa, Prince George, Mississauga (x2), Montreal, Regina, Niagara, New Brunswick, Edmonton, Hamilton, Windsor, Belleville, Toronto, Okanagan and Calgary.

This was one more than last year, but what was surprising to me was that there was little consistency from last year to this year – eight of the Centres responded in both years, but five of last year’s Centres didn’t respond this year, and an additional six did.… Read the rest

Survey of RASC Ottawa Members and the Public for Events held in 2018

PolyWogg.ca
March 27 2019

In my role as the RASC Ottawa Public Star Party Coordinator for 2017 and 2018, I sent out client feedback surveys to members and this year to the public too. For this year’s survey, looking at events held in 2018, I received 46 responses, a slight uptick from the 40 received last year. This year’s survey was sent to email distribution lists for RASC Ottawa members, OAFs, and OAOG, as well as posted on Facebook, Twitter, and the Ottawa Meetup pages where the events are advertised. These are the results.

Q1. Attendees to our public events often come from many groups. Which categories apply to you?

  • Member of RASC Ottawa in 2018 [32 = 69.6%]
  • Past member of RASC Ottawa, not current [2 = 4.3%]
  • Member of Ottawa Astronomy Friends (OAFs) [8 = 17.4%]
  • Member of Ottawa Valley Astronomy and Observers Group [1 = 2.2%]
  • Member of Regroupement des Astronomes Amateurs de l’Outaouais Quebecois (RAAOQ) [0 = 0%]
  • Astronomer with scope or binoculars, but not formally a member of anything [6 = 13%] ** 1 person also added Astro Photography as a sub-option **
  • General public (i.e., no scope) [6 = 13%]
  • None given [1 = 2.2%]

With 56 overall responses in there, obviously there was some overlap (most likely between the OAFs who have RASC affiliations).… Read the rest

A survey of RASC Centres about public viewing events

PolyWogg.ca
April 14 2018

I joined the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada – Ottawa Centre a little over 5 years ago. I had a telescope when I was a kid, one of the cheap handheld ones, and predictably, I saw almost nothing with it. Fast-forward 30 years, and I bought a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope with some inheritance money. During those five years, I had no end of alignment challenges that I couldn’t quite figure out, so my enthusiasm for all things astronomical, including Ottawa Centre, waxed and waned like the moon — when things went well, it was great! When things didn’t go well, I felt like an idiot.

Finally, in 2015, I eliminated one huge problem with the help of a member at a monthly star party; in 2017, with the help of another member for a special one-hour “problem-solving” aka “see if Paul is just an idiot” session, we found a hard-to-diagnose problem with the controller setup; and Bob’s your uncle, we solved the intermittent alignment problems. I was good to go. And so, partly in gratitude for the help the Centre had given me and partly in a desire to be more involved, I became the “acting Star Party Coordinator for 2017”.… Read the rest

Survey results for RASC Star Parties in Ottawa for 2018

PolyWogg.ca
March 2 2018

As the RASC Star Party Coordinator for the Ottawa Centre, I asked members for information on two surveys for our approach in 2018. I don’t intend to be a simple slave to the survey (Mike M warned me that way could lead to madness!), but I did want some input on various elements to help guide my thinking. This post is designed to give some of the results of the survey. I divided the survey into two separate surveys on Survey Monkey, one about the overall approach and one about the actual dates. The response rate wasn’t astronomical (no pun intended), with about 40 people having views on the approach but only 20 having views on the dates.

The Survey about the Approach

Q1: The first question was a simple one — for our monthly star parties, did they want to only have them at Carp (15%), hold the main ones at Carp but have some extra ones elsewhere (53%), or mostly Carp but move them around (32%)? There are different ways to splice those findings. Some two-thirds definitely want all the main ones at Carp; however 85% are open to at least some (main or extra) at other locations. When I read the comments provided, I’m left with clear interest in FLO and the East End.… Read the rest