Children try out optical telescopes they built from kits at the MIT Museum's March FAST program (Family Adventures in Science and Technology). "Out There: Probing the Heavens with Radio Telescopes" featured several Haystack Observatory staff members who explained the differences between optical and radio astronomy. In the left photo's foreground is Haystack's Small Radio Telescope, developed at Haystack for high school and college use. At right, local teacher Glenn Chaple, who volunteered to help with the program, leads a group of children who made optical telescopes. More than 400 children and parents attended the program, which also included demonstrations of the characteristics of radio waves and a talk on radio astronomy's discoveries in deep space.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 12, 2000.
