Solar eclipse fun

Dear Editor:Sunday evening I attended the solar eclipse viewing event at the Columbia Memorial Space Center, along with some of my grandchildren, and my husband and son, who are members of the new "Columbia Astronomers" club, meeting monthly at the museum. We were gratified to see Mayor Roger Brossmer, councilman Mario Guerra, Dr. Mary Stauffer, and other long-time Downey residents, supporting this local event. A large crowd of individuals and families attended. There have been previous star-watching events at the museum. We hope the next ones get the enthusiastic response this event received. They are great family activities, and introductions to educational and fun hobbies. Some of you may have seen the nice write-up of the Downey space museum in the Auto Club's Westways magazine. Our museum was one of five astronomy/space related vacation day trips recommended by the magazine. We wanted to honor long-time astronomy enthusiast Bob Weinrich for his hours of volunteering, manning his solarscope for the people lined up, also the hard-working museum employees: Ricardo Padilla, with his table top solarscope, Jared Head, answering the questions of the crowd, and Rick O'Connor, Jessica Mercado, and Petra Salazar making the eclipse event run smoothly. Thanks to Kaili Torres for her able oversight of our museum events. Another Downey citizen and experienced astronomer, John Unkovich, will run a booth for Downey's Columbia Astronomers at the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference in the San Bernardino Mountains this week. Glory Derryberry Downey

********** Published: May 24, 2012 - Volume 11 - Issue 06