Astronomy Outreach – From Local to Global
Namaste. My name is Joan Chamberlin, and I am an amateur astronomer, informal astronomy educator, and NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador for the state of Maine in the USA. I am a retired special education teacher, who became involved in astronomy about 10 years ago mostly because I was interested in observing all the beautiful objects to be seen in the night sky with the naked eye and with telescopes. As soon as I learned how to use a telescope and began attending star parties with my friends at two different astronomy clubs, I realized that what I loved most of all was sharing my knowledge with schools and the public. Here is a picture of me at the Astronomical Society of Northern New England observatory in Kennebunk, Maine with my telescope, which is a 10 inch Dobsonian. The best thing about this telescope is that it is easy to set up and, because it gathers lots of light, it gives marvelous views of deep sky objects such as globular clusters, open clusters, galaxies, and planetary ...