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12 LIVE IT UP! SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2014 SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2014 LIVE IT UP! 13 THE SKY'S THE LIMIT Senior astronomers share their perspective with others "Some people promise you the stars. We deliver." – Santa Cruz Astronomy Club ers about it," says Gose, who has retired from the military. "And we have plenty of people come by and show interest – college freshmen or high school seniors, and kids with their parents. One time we had a dozen astronomers out there; we gave them a real eye full, and everyone had fun." Club members also head indoors at the Harvey West Park Scout House in Santa Cruz, on the second Thursday of every month to hold a meeting and learn from guest and member speakers on topics ranging from astrophysics to my- thology. "We hosted Dr. Graeme Smith from the Astrophysics Department at UC Santa Cruz," says Gose. "He called the stars 'fossils in the sky' and took a real Sherlock Holmes angle of discovery. People in this field are so open and knowledge- able, always willing to encourage others to get involved." Bill and Susan O'Neil recently spoke to their fellow SCAC mem- bers, taking them on a virtual tour of their experiences as park rangers for Glacier Park's Astro-VIP (volunteers in the parks) experi- ence, hoping others will "follow their gaze" and get involved. "We got to wear serious ranger uniforms," says Bill, "which meant any visitor wandering through the park, who saw a guy in a brown shirt, looking through a telescope saw me as fair game for a wide range of questions. We usually got to talking about astronomy. Susan got into the night sky ranger pro- gram for kids and had a great time working with all the kids who came to Glacier Park." The O'Neils recently signed up to participate in Bay Area Project Astro, an astronomy education program presented by the Astro- nomical Association of the Pacific. The program, which boasts nearly 250 participants and reaches more than 150 schools and commu- nity-based organizations in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, serves teachers and students in 3rd through 9th-grade classrooms and after-school programs. "The program pairs up science teachers and volunteer astrono- mers, who are interested in teach- ing kids about astronomy," says Bill. "We participate in a two-day work- shop over the summer and then put together a plan for working in the classroom before having a solar party or star party. It's okay to talk with kids at night in the dark – it's kind of magical, actually - but I like to be able to see their faces light up and make sure they're getting it." T he sky is inky black, perforated by a scat- tering of stars that light up the night and put a hush on the air. Except for the chatter of an excitable crowd taking in the evening at the Bonny Doon Airport through skyward-tilted telescopes. These are the dedicated members of the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club (SCAC), who have been hosting "star parties" nearly once a week since the club's inception in the early 1970s. It all started with a clear night and a strong scope, and a gathering of friends fascinated by the structures in the sky. Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects – moons, stars, planets – and their physics, chemistry and evolution. Some people go into a great depth of exploration, while others just like to look. Yet the members of SCAC, many of whom are senior citizens who have been showing up at star parties since the '70s, like nothing better than to share what they see and explain what they understand about the sky to anyone who will look and listen. "Astronomers are a loquacious group," says Bill O'Neil who, with his wife Susan, served last summer as volunteer park rangers in Glacier National Park near the Canadian border, for a month of solar parties by day and star parties by night. "In Glacier," he says, "we logged in more than 4,500 park visitors who looked through our telescopes. We love looking at the stars and the planets; there's always something new and exciting. In showing the public the moon with its craters blows their socks off to see what's really up there. We never tire of it, either. It's a slippery slope. Once you get started, you're hooked. And then it's hard to shut us up." O'Neil, who says he's on the "wrong side of 70," first got interested in astronomy as a young Boy Scout. After commanding a telescope for a num- ber of years, he got out of the habit of studying the sky until five years ago, after he retired from a career in the Silicon Valley. "Getting back into it," says O'Neil, "I really got involved in the outreach aspect of astronomy – talking primarily to kids and getting them in- spired by the magic of it. We go out on evening star parties with charter schools, Girl and Boy Scouts; they learn a little bit about astronomy and then come out to see it in real life. Jupiter is up this time of year, which is always exciting for kids, as is Saturn." Club President Jeff Gose, 55, got into astron- omy three years ago, and gets out to the Bonny Doon Airport at least twice a month to see what's up and share it with whomever comes by. "We attract interest from a diversity of partic- ipants. We have members retired from various industries, many of whom are retired teachers, but we all enjoy the hobby and teaching oth- by Lisa Crawford Watson

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