by Jim Fling

Former Director John Miller, Bob Thorpe and myself represented the AAAP in Palmer Square, Princeton. The Princeton Library and our friends at Princeton University Astrophysics sponsored an eclipse viewing party on the lawn at Palmer Square. TV news estimated the crowd at over 2,000 people! Both John and Bob provided telescopes for viewing and my estimate is that well over 400 people and children got to see the sun, sun spots and the moon through the scopes that these two veteran AAAP members provided!

It was a very hot day and it was quite the effort for John and Bob to tote those telescopes to Princeton and deliver three plus hours of viewing to the public, but that’s one of the primary missions of the AAAP and people were delighted to say the least.

ABC news was there all day. Watch the video news clip of the event on their web site. In the video look for John peering through his telescope and then also making some comments about the size of the crowd relative to his 30+ years of public outreach.