New home for the 433rd!

Our old home of 40 years at St Luke’s United Church at 516 The Kingsway closed in June 2010. We’d like to thank the congregation who sponsored us through all those years.

Beginning in September 2010, the 433rd has relocated to Islington United Church (at 25 Burnhamthorpe Road just north of Dundas Street). IUC has graciously offered to sponsor our group continuing their 50 year commitment to Scouting. We were fortunate to find a congregation with such a strong commitment and excellent facilities that include two halls.

Thanks to everyone at Islington United Church!

David Dunlap Observatory Tour and Photos

On March 4th 2008, the 433rd Cubs, parents, and a few Scouts paid a visit to the David Dunlap Observatory. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and we couldn't actually see the stars or do our work for the Globe at Night's light pollution awareness project. We were fortunate to beat a major snowstorm that descended on the city shortly after we left.

We were able to take in a presentation at the administration building that covered many of the requirements of the Astronomers Badge. The tour also counts towards requirement B3 or the Black Star. Our cubs had some good questions and demonstrated their knowledge of astronomy including one or two things that surprised me.

Afterward we were able to visit the observatory dome and see the telescope. The scope is quite massive and the Cubs were impressed that it was so finely balanced that impatient astronomers could move the 25 ton assembly by hand!

We learned a bit of the history of the facility, its use for astrophotography, and a renown Canadian astronomer Helen Sawyer Hogg who conducted research at the DDO for many decades.

We also saw a spectrographic lens and learned a bit about some of the work being done, including a study of rather bizarre systems known as contact binaries. In these systems two rapidly co-orbiting stars are so close they actually touch but do not merge! There are a number of interesting question that aren't known about these including how they came so close.

Hopefully, we will be able to return later this spring to actually look through the eyepiece!

Our thanks to Tuba Koktay, Ian Shelton, and Thomas Karmo at the DDO.

BP Banquet 2008

For some photos of the BP Banquet, see here.

Wakeboarding in February!?

This weeks meeting was supposed to be a tobogganing party at Akela's house. It just didn't work out that way. It almost turned into a wakeboarding party!

I write this now watching the tail end of the 30+ cm of snow we were hit with Wednesday, thinking about last Friday's snow storm that closed schools in Toronto around mid-day and left most of us digging out.

Enough snow to close Toronto schools is a rare event indeed. We had every right to expect a great tobogganing party. Unfortunately for our plans, we were hit with an all too frequent thaw and rainfall over the weekend. So by Tuesday night, the hill was fine thin but the 8 cm deep mini-lake of ice water at the bottom was definitely a bad thing.

Making the best of it, we went on a hike through West Deane Park Valley, slid down hills, made snowmen and had snowball fights. When done, we retired to Akela's basement for cookies and hot-chocolate.

Isn't it good to have a plan "B".

The Toronto Fire Service visits the 433rd!

At our last meeting, we had a visit from the Toronto Fire Service.



We learned about basic fire safety, including:

• smoke alarms (batteries and hush buttons)
• a family escape plan and meeting spots
• calling 911 immediately
• crawling out under the smoke
• stop, drop, and roll
• not reentering the building for any reason
• not opening windows and blocking the crack under the door
  
• making yourself obvious to firefighters (dancing in the window and not hiding in your room)
  

We also

• learned about some of the leading causes of fires in Toronto.
  
• saw a demonstration of firefighting clothing
• had a fun obstacle course to test our fire skills
  

This activity counts towards our Family Safety Badge and Blue Star requirement B4.

Safety kits including an escape planning guide were sent home.

In the next couple of weeks Cubs can bring their completed plan in and we will complete the badge work.

Here are some links to fire safety resources:

• Toronto fire prevention resources, here.
• Sparky the Fire Dog, a kid and family focused site, here.
  
• Kid focused activities for teachers from the Ontario Fire Marshall's Safety Council, here.
• Parent resources from the the Ontario Fire Marshall's Safety Council, here.
• Ontario Office of the Fire Marshall's main safety page, here.
  

Special thanks to Colin's mom and the TFS!

Comet Holmes visits the 433rd!

While I'm an avid amateur astronomer, for one reason or another I have never been lucky with comets. Either they or I have been in the wrong place or time and not linked up. In 1986, I saw Comet Halley in the Caribbean. It was not impressive. Comet Kohoutek was a major dud.

Tonight I came to our pack meeting opportunistically armed with some basic information about Comet Holmes, a camera tripod, and a pair of 11x70 binoculars. By around 8pm the cloud cleared off and both Cassiopeia and Aurigae were visible. I went out to the church parking lot and looked high up in the north east through the light pollution of Toronto.

Comet Holmes is unusual in that it is brightening as it moves away from the Sun. With its tail pointing away from us, we see only the head of it straight on. The comet itself is about 2km in diameter, yet the gas cloud forming its head is well over 1 million km across, almost as large as as the Sun.

I quickly found the nice little jewel box of stars in the core of Perseus and nearly jumped out of my skin! The thing is huge and right where it was supposed to be. Faint in the city sky, fuzzy, absolutely amazing, and visible from a parking lot under street lights. Within minutes I could see a hint of it unaided. Better still, every Cub present was able to see it and score a requirement for their astronomy badge!

Update 2007-11-17: Holmes is now the largest thing in the solar system - Incredible Comet Bigger than the Sun.

Update 2008-2-6: Here are two composite images of Comet Holmes that may be of interest.
This multiple exposure shot shows how Homes chanes and moves over time.
This shot shows Holmes from Earth and a close up of the head taken by the Hubble.