The mission of ASLO is to educate the common man about the stars planets, etc., and to enlighten ourselves through this process. Hence, I have the music from "Mission Impossible" playing in the background.
My friend Mike took this picture of the moon for me. The scanning quality isn't that great, but he really is pretty good at astrophotography. In the ASLO gallery (below) he has placed various pictures that he has taken.
Come see what ASLO is all about. It's an organization of astronomers based in western Michigan. Its goal is to help others obtain a better understanding of what is "out there". Check out my thought page that has a section on faster-than-light travel.
There have been a few times when we were able to really reach out and teach people about space. One of the best times was down at the University of Illinois (Champaign, IL). It was during an annular solar eclipse. It was May 10, 1994, I think. We set up our telescopes in the middle of a whole bunch of people. Mike's telescope had a filter to view the sun directly. My cheap Tasco telescope was set up to project an image on a piece of paper (see the animation of our friend Ryan Cummins on the ETPI page) so that everyone could see. We taught passers-by the basics of what was happening and why. Two 'ladies' kept asking, "Is that for REAL?" This day became known as "Eclipse Day" in the history of ETPI.
A while ago I was looking at Comet Hale-Bopp through my binoculars. People started gathering around me wondering what I was looking at, so I gave a little astronomy lesson right there. Again, it was cool, but more importantly I helped bring the world of astronomy to the common man.
Of course there have been many less significant instances when the members of ASLO were able to help others see the wonders of space and its relevance to us, but I don't need to list them all here.
Check out this site to see NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. It's pretty cool and gives an explanation about the picture and links to astronomy terms.