Haverford College Astronomy signed up to be an eclipse glasses recycling point for Astronomers without Borders, and the response has been overwhelming. We are inundated with mail containing glasses, and notes sharing experiences of the eclipse and hopes for children all over the world to enjoy future ones.
We are a pretty small observatory here. Haverford College had two astronomy faculty, embedded within a joint Astronomy-Physics department of six faculty, a few instructional and research staff. Lately we graduate joint Physics-Astronomy classes of about 20-30 students, 25% of whom are in the astronomy program.
The students run Public Observing at our Strawbridge Observatory about three times a semester, which are fairly popular.
We held an eclipse glasses vetting event on Saturday 11th May 2024, which doubled as a goodbye party for our Senior Majors involved in running Public Observing at Strawbridge Observatory.
The glasses keep coming, and many students have now left for the summer. I (Karen Masters) have been sorted some during telecons, but we’ll have to plan another event (or two or more) to get through. I will try to organize one this summer, and one in the Fall when most students return.
Currently we have about 4,000 glasses vetted and stored ready to go (in two boxes) once Astronomers without Borders lets us know what to do with them. We have several thousand more in the process of being vetted.
