Wetland solar observing event report

[PEterW]

Noticed the London Wetland Centre was having a Solar Viewing event, organised by the Astro retailer Astronomia, who now have a shop on site. I offered my assistance as I have not heard of any other local events and being a Wetland Centre member it would be free for me to go along.
A grey start did not convince me to rush along; ended up leaving a few hours late when the sun did peek out... it returned behind the clouds by the time I arrived. Not to worry as I got to talk to an old astro friend John who had grabbed some prom data using his 100mm PST mod. Lots of chatting about scopes and cameras and processing. Finally (around 30mins AFTER the scheduled end of the event) the sun did peek out for a bit (between breaks in the cloud... we had been cursing the satellite images all afternoon). The lucky people who were passing by got a treat through double stacked Lunt 60 and Solarscope as well as my CaK scope and the 100mm PST. (Knew I should have brought the wedge along.... Who's heard of a solar event with no white light!!!!).
Still a pleasant event, plenty of interesting conversations (PGR Chameleon looks like an interesting "upgrade" from my DMK41). I failed to get any data from the double stack scopes, so can convince myself I don't NEED a second filter that bit longer.
No further events here planned here for the rest of the year, but I will be back next year with more kit as it is a nice place to visit and there are plenty of potential solar converts walking about!

Cheers

PEter

[marktownley]

Great bit of outreach Peter! good job! 8)

[swisswalter]

Hi Peter

great you had finally some sunshine. Thanks for the outreach report

[Montana]

sounds fantastic

Great CaK image too

Alexandra

[raylal]

Thanks for the report Peter and glad to see the sun came out. Congrats on doing outreach, loads of fun. Beautiful CaK image.

Ray