The SternenZelt ("Tentof the Stars") is one of the highlights of the IYA in Germany: For three days numerous institutions of professional and amateur astronomy present themselves to the public. On the first day alone some 4000 visitors were counted!
At the booth of the Public Observatory of Bonn
where e.g. the make-up of the solar system and the workings of telescopes were explained.
Lower right: When the Sun shines on this white tent, it gets hot ...
Upper and middle left: the booth of the European Southern Observatory, promoting in particular the E-ELT monster telescope project. Upper right: a simple myon detector in action. Other three pictures: a rare public presentation by the Forschungsgesellschaft für Angewandte Naturwissenschaften which runs a mostly military research radar facility near Bonn - and has obtained remarkable 3D images of spacecraft in orbit. What they show in the SternenZelt is not nearly the best they can do nowadays, though, a spokesman admitted: This they are not allowed to reveal ...
The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy had actually brought a little steerable radio dish, demonstrating reception effects in real-time.
Booths by the Argelander Institute for Astronomy and the Deutsches Museum Bonn.
For the "Lokalzeit aus Bonn" WDR TV brought in an SNG truck and another one, two camera people and several other staffers for a live broadcast. Among the interviewees H. Burghardt from the Public Observatory Bonn and Germany's IYA SPoC M. Geffert. Their 4-minute piece has been archived here!
Young spectroscopists: A simple contraption reveales some Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum.
More views of the SternenZelt in the Sun on the Münsterplatz - the final (estimated) count for all three days is a whopping 17,000 visitors!
A demonstration of a modern Keplerian telescope vs. a Galilean design: The much smaller field of view of the latter (and generally lower image quality) were made obvious to many visitors of the Volkssternwarte Bonn booth.
All pictures by Daniel Fischer