Pride Under the Stars on Friday, 7 June, 2024, was a big success. Thanks to Supervalu in Gibsons and Independent in Sechelt for their generous donations of beverages and snacks for this event. Thanks to the Halfmoon Bay Society for the loan of a drink cooler. We are very grateful for our partners, Sunshine Coast Pride, for all of their hard work and assistance. Thanks to Laurelai, Danny, Michael, Bill, and Danny for all their hard work in setting up and showing people the sky with solar scopes and telescopes. Danny provided the power from a generator in his truck. Attendance was 75 people, which smashed the previous record of 40 for an observing night. We are still calculating the donations, etc., but we made about $1000 which will be shared between our astronomy club and our partners in Sunshine Coast Pride.
Drag Kings Davis Gay, Manly Nipkiss, Randy Darlin’, and Ryan Ginger entertained us with astronomy related music and routines with DJ E-List. E-List also provided sound for the presentations. We screened the RASC I & D Committee’s documentary The Stars Belong to Everyone. There was a non-alcoholic bar with drinks, popcorn, and cookies.
Solar scopes were up for early arrivals and following the entertainment we switched to night sky viewing. This was the day after the New Moon, so we had a 3% sliver of setting Moon to start with. The skies were excellent and we were able to show visitors many of the wonders of the night sky. As at the Pride event in Mission Park the previous weekend, we had a lot of telescope owners or people hoping to become telescope owners asking about getting involved in astronomy with us.
Sunshine Coast Centre RASC 