[Atmob-discuss] Amateur Astronomy in Beijing

[noatak at aol.com]

Nice work Bruce,
? You are putting a great foot forward for Chinese-American relations in the Astronomy world.
I'll bet you are having the time of your life. Bring back some video. We'll expect you to translate
for us.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Berger <bruce at scopemaker.com>
To: atmob-discuss at atmob.org
Sent: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:35 am
Subject: [Atmob-discuss] Amateur Astronomy in Beijing



Hi,
 
The skies in Beijing have been socked in all this week, but a colleague here
says that in China, a comet is a bad omen. I'm still trying to understand
that, but she's happy that it's not visible. That is until the skies cleared
up tonite. I'll get back to that in a moment.
 
Friday night I enjoyed dinner with Dr. Jin Zhu, Director of the Beijing
Planetarium. He invited me to join a small group of observers someplace
outside of Beijing on Sunday night, when it is supposed to clear up. So I
though that maybe I'll get to see this comet after all.
 
It turns out that our observing session was really a star party just outside
of the Beijing Zoo, in a very well-lit parking lot, with TV cameras and
lights and about 75 people. My little 4" homemade China Scope ran just
perfectly on its maiden public event. The moon was a good site and the comet
was very visible, though not naked eye, about a hands-width away from the
moon.
 
I was photographed by a newspaper and interviewed, in English and very
broken Chinese. They asked questions on telescope making and shot some
footage of me and some kids looking through my scope, and then continued the
interview with the planetarium director asking questions about what I
thought of China's great achievement with the Chance 1 lunar satellite. It
was pretty cool. After searching almost in vain for a year, tonite I
discovered that amateur astronomy is very alive and well in Beijing.
 
I forgot my camera, but if they do as promised, I should have some pictures
and footage from Chinese TV to show at an upcoming meeting.
 
Bruce Berger

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