Astronomy Day 2003

River Bend Astronomy Club (RBAC) hosted its fourth annual Astronomy Day event on Saturday, April 24, 2004. For the second consecutive year, we successfully joined forces with the Children's Museum in Edwardsville, Illinois, by "Bringing Astronomy to the People." Many of our members and their families graciously volunteered their time to share and celebrate this wonderful hobby. Although the weather, once again, dampened our outdoor plans, nearly 150 people from three states - Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa - attended our event. Despite the weather, there were still plenty of educational activities inside for all to enjoy.

A couple of naked eye comets had already visited us early in 2004 that prompted an interactive presentation by comet historian Gary Kronk. A frothy mixture of dry ice, water, and other interesting additives was shaped into a "dirty snowball" by Mark Brown. This mixture modeled a comet's icy nucleus and visitors were able to witness and learn how a comet vents its gases and dust into space as it nears the sun in its journey around our solar system.

With the successful and safe landing of the Mars rovers, this further enhanced our visitors' appetite for learning more about the mysterious red planet. We were privileged to have The Planetary Society join us at our event to answer some of the intriguing questions about Mars and the progress of the two rovers. Their representative, Jeannette Schodroski, brought along some cool posters and 3D images of Mars for our visitors to enjoy.

Earlier in the year, RBAC received notification of its acceptance for membership in the NASA Night Sky Network, a partnership of amateur astronomy clubs, NASA, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the Astronomical League. The goal of the program is to conduct outreach - where outreach means getting out into our communities to educate and to make a difference in understanding astronomy, the space sciences, and future missions. Astronomy Day served as a catalyst to do just that within our community.

RBAC awarded dozens of prizes and distributed hundreds of informative giveaways and promotions from our sponsors. The prizes included magazine subscriptions, telescope accessories, books, posters, a Mars rover LEGO set, gift certificates, and two telescopes! As always, the telescopes captured the attention of everyone. Cheyenne Wallace of Alton, Illinois, and Courtney Curtis of Edwardville, Illinois, are now proud owners of telescopes donated by Pass Systems Group and Hardin Optical Company.