It was a tremendously successful evening at the Fulshear library on March 12, 2026. The weather could not have been better and the people showed up in droves. Our facilitator, Chidi Nwokike, took care of all our needs and estimated we had 150 people attend the event. The residents of the Fulshear/Katy area are hungry for science and it has been evident by the attendance of our events in that area.
Bill Spizzirri presented on Meteors and Meteorites and Don Cooper presented on Apollo 11 and 13. In between sessions Bill had a popular meteorite petting zoo allowing both little and big kids alike to get a close up experience with our solar system as he allowed them to touch his meteorite collection.
During the sessions we had so many people show up that the library ran out of chairs and we had standing room only. Don and Bill also make a great presenter team with mutual admiration for each other.
Outside by the telescopes it was no different. Our volunteers were kept very busy as folks started showing up even before dark. Main objects shown were Jupiter and the Orion Nebula. We had pretty stable skies and good seeing so the views were great.
On telescopes we had:
- Sean Carey with his 76mm Takahashi refractor
- Joe Dellinger with his 105mm Traveler Astrophysics refractor
- Richard Mannarino with his Dwarf smartscope and 8 inch classic Dobsonian
- Sean McDougall with his SeeStar S50 assisted by his son Andrew and daughter Abygayle
- Matt Poteau with his 8 inch Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain
- Wayne Wiegand with his 10 inch Dobsonian
Both Sean McDougall and Matt were first timers to AOW and I am always appreciative of new volunteers. Matt has been volunteering at George Observatory both at the East Dome and with a deck scope for several years now and took time out of his college spring break to volunteer. Sean wowed the crowd with a great image of the Orion Nebula captured by his SeeStar.
The biggest take away I had from the event is how appreciative the public was. I heard so many thank yous that I lost count. It is events like this one that really drive home that we are making a difference in our community. A big thanks to all the FBAC volunteers.
