Fragments from the report received from Keith Deveneys,
See Keith's full funny report here (it's a must :)
"The first K.A.S (Keithy's Astronomical Society) 
event took place last night and into the early hours of Thursday morning under the banner of IFAS IYA2009 and 100 Hours of Astronomy. (...) I set up the scope about 8:30pm and packed up at 1:00am. (...) There were about 50 or 60 distinct viewers throughout the night.
event took place last night and into the early hours of Thursday morning under the banner of IFAS IYA2009 and 100 Hours of Astronomy. (...) I set up the scope about 8:30pm and packed up at 1:00am. (...) There were about 50 or 60 distinct viewers throughout the night.I was run off my feet answering questions, plugging IFAS/100Hours/IYA2009, moving the scope to new targets.
The scope performed like a champ. (...) The Equatorial Platform did its job and provided flawless tracking all night long. What a saving grace that is for public events like this.
We look at the Moon at 187x predominently with short periods at 88x. We looked at Saturn at 187x predominently and I switched between the two targets all night. I think nearly everyone that stopped by got to see both of these targets at the very least. Earlier in the night I also showed the other usual suspect, M42. (...)
It goes without saying that I enjoyed this impromptu immensely. I had people thanking me over and over, "This is amazing... I've never seen anything like it, I've never looked through a telescope before", "Thank you, thank you, this is an amzing community minded thing you are doing" (...)
I had people shaking my hand while thanking me, people offering me money ("You aren't charging!!"), people wanting to know when the next event would be. There were people phoning friends and family to come down for a look, there were people arriving and telling me how strangers up the street had told them, "Go down the road there to the shop, theres a guy with a huge telescope showing the moon and the planets!" There were cars stopping at the junction opposite the shop and rolling down the windows looking over and wondering what was going on. (...)
There is nothing like the vicarious kick one gets out of watching other people shout O..M..G !! when they look at something they have never seen 'for real' in a telescope. I had an absolute blast.
You know, that John Dobson fella was a clever chap. I salute you Sir... both for inventing the Dobsonian Telescope and for inventing Sidewalk Astronomy!"
