15th March 2025 – Open Night is open
This year’s Observatory Open Night on the 15th of March was about as good as we could hope for. Top of the wish list was that we had clear skies and I don’t remember clear skies on any Open Night during the last 5 years – it had to happen eventually. It wasn’t entirely clear but clear enough, during different times, to get the roof of the James Gregory open and home in on some targets.
Meantime, back in the Twin Dome, we had the final showing of the huge curtain of stars – in negative form. Centred in the arc of negatives was the large concave mirror which, for this occasion, became an icy blue pool (seemingly). With the gorgeous soundtrack by Trio Ramberget I knew that I needed a strong blue component to tie in with the track that we chose “Fading Away in Blue”. Some folk looked like they had the urge to dive in.
Finally, apologies for any of our public who had to wait outside the door for a wee bit – at least there were stars to look up at. Judging by the numbers, we had one of our busiest nights in recent years and there’s only so many folk you can squish into the Twin Dome.