Dave Wagner enjoys seeing the sense of wonderment when people gaze at the night sky using telescopes he brings to suburban libraries for special programs. “The best feedback we get when we’re doing the ‘Moon Over Lake Zurich,’ or whatever, is some child going up to the telescope looking at Saturn and basically going, ‘Oh wow, is that real?’ People don’t even realize what they’re seeing in the sky,” said Wagner, a retired electrical engineer who’s a Lake County Astronomical Society member. Wagner said the strong interest he’s observed in his group’s astronomy events at public libraries in Lake Zurich, Wheeling and Mundelein led him to help those facilities launch a telescope check-out program, mimicking one that is spreading in New England. By all accounts, the local telescope effort is off to a hot start. Lake Zurich’s Ela Area Public Library hasn’t kept its six telescopes on the shelf for very long since launching the program in November. The library has 34 patrons on the telescope waiting list.
bluesyemre 
Leave a Reply