100 Hours of Astronomy: Day II

3 April
The second day of the 100 Hours of Astronomy was not really satisfying for me as an event organiser in terms of public outreach.

I've already discussed my limitations as an organiser before. On this day, the limitations kind of started harming me as I had no access to the Internet (see the same post). As a result, I couldn't show the live webcast (from 80 telescopes all over the world) I promised my guests.

It was a bit disheartening to see so many people disappointed. But I had to go on. So, the second day was basically a rehash of Day I - Part 2. Number of attendees on Day II was higher than that of Day I. The participants were mostly adult. Accompanied by their guardians, some school students also came.

Save the initial disappointment, the programme was not bad at all. In fact, it was quite good. The DVD movie on Saturn didn't (thankfully) fail to charm them. I had many pictures and other videos on my computer. I used them too. The lectures, I am told, were "eye-opening" for many. Thank FSM they liked my lectures which, in my opinion, were not up to the mark.

The sky-watching session wasn't as good. The clouded sky, you know. The only objects we could observe were the Moon and Saturn. The general reaction was better than that of Day I.

So that was it. I can't remember anything special about Day II to write about.

P.S. I simply can't comprehend why so many people are afraid of being photographed. Whenever I took a photo, almost everyone asked me what I was going to do with it. When I said that the photo would be published on this blog, they refused vehemently. Why? They apparently had no objections to the photos. They read about the perils of posting photos on social-networking sites. They (politely) told me that they trusted me, but not the intentions of the people who would visit this blog. I was dying to tell them that, of all the fine pictures on the Internet, none would choose photos of a public astronomical event photos to send hatemails to the attendees or harm them in any possible way. And if this blog had any reader at all!