The story made by mwtse is very true. It reflects the problems that most astro clubs face - how to keep the club running with quality continuously for a long time.
I have no solution for such problem. So my suggestions are more to do with running activities:
1. For ordinary students, hold observation night in school (I assume the sky is very much observable from your school, since you'll have a dome there.) when about half of the moon is observable. Do not start with watching deep sky objects in moonless night. Most students are only interested in the moon and planets. For DSO, only M42, big globulars like M22 and some open clusters are interesting for them. Don't forget to throw in one double star system with nice colour contrast in your list of targets.
http://www.imsc.edu.hk/pages/astronomy/ ... 90116.html2. For deep sky observation, bring a computer (or ipad or iphone) to show the students colourful pictures of the observation targets. e.g. I download pics to my iphone and show the students.
3. Keep the number of students manageable, with enough observation time for each student. Otherwise, they will queue up for ages and start chatting/doing various things that you don't want.
4. Tell the students what to observe. Find out more about the object you will be showing beforehand from the web or books. e.g. Do not just say 'Here is Saturn, watch!' (the most frequent 'guidance' in 'guided observation' I see in sidewalk and various astro activities). For saturn, ask them whether they see Cassini division, the colourful bands on the globe, the shadow of the globe on the ring (or the shadow of the ring on the globe), identify the A, B and C rings, etc. Tell them what the ring is made of and why it formed. Tell them why it is so elliptical shaped. Challenge the students to say how many satellites they see in the eyepiece. Tell them about Titan......
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=663#p6467In April, I had 10 students watching Saturn and moon with me in one evening with my 18 inch. We spent more than 1 hour just on saturn. 10 people were already too many to handle! A few days afterwards, I invited just one student, and we watched Saturn for 2 hours. Yes, just one target.
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=9995. For observation to be stunning, get a big scope of at least 8 inch aperture. A 12 inch dobs is a great tool and doesn't cost much - It costs much less than the data-logging system in every school which get used for only a few times per year. (A small scope is more useful for photography. This is partly why not many amateurs in HK do visual work. Their scopes are too small.)
6. Most students can only handle 1h to 1.5h of observation. Then they get bored.
7. Spend some budget on getting solar equipment. Solar observation is the easiest observation you can do in school.
http://www.imsc.edu.hk/pages/astronomy/ ... 00113.html8. Do not focus on photography. Hardly any student is interested in it.
9. Have a reasonable expectation on your participants. They may be interested in stargazing once or twice a year, not once every month!
10. For the small number of real enthusiasts, it is easiest NOT to do it within the school system. Just get a few friends and go out whenever you feel like it. Join our astrocafe activites!
11. Avoid booking camps as you never know whether the sky will be clear that night.
For my astronomy club in school, I aim to do at least the followings every year:
1. One astronomy talk/workshop every week. (I probably have made about 50 powerpoints on various astronomy topics, about one hour duration for each talk.)
2. One or two big-group (30 people) stargazing nights in school, held when half of the moon is observable.
3. Solar observation whenever there is something big going on in the sun.
4. Two pure deep sky observation nights in moonless sky, one is winter and one in summer (for enthusiasts only)