Hoaxes, Tours, Galileoscopes & More!

There is a lot to catch up on, but for now I'll post a few quick links to some things.

First up, it is August, so that means it is time for the Mars Hoax to rear its ugly head once again. NASA has just put out a story on it. This is the kind of thing that gets people excited about astronomy (a good thing), but then dashes their hopes (a bad thing). This year Mars will not be visible in the sky at all and will be about as far from Earth as it can get--making the story about as untrue as it can possibly be.

Don't forget that Julian Starfest takes place later this week. It should be a fun event and there is a free public star party taking place there Saturday, August 7th.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a 7th grade science teacher from Boston as she makes the trek to 12 observatories of the southwestern U.S. She is blogging about it, so go on over to check it out.

The photo at the top of this post was from earlier today, as a group of students from UCSD's COSMOS program got a tour of the 200-inch Hale Telescope. Don't forget that you can go on your own tour of the Hale on Saturdays & Sundays through October. Click here for the details.

Speaking of tours, for the last year or so we have been giving out one Galileoscope on each tour. Over 300 were given out. Many of the galileoscopes were given out in the memory of one of our docents, Fred Givant. Last weekend we gave out our last one. I'd like to take this moment to remember Fred and to thank the people who helped continue the program in his memory.

Fred, we still miss your enthusiasm and your dedication to public outreach.