Tour and Observing Evening at Lick Observatory

Astronomy and astrophysics is a great way to catch the attention of the general public and practicing physicists alike. We have offered a tour and observing evening as part of summer schools at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the conference on Atomic Spectra and Oscillator Strengths (ASOS 10) hosted by UC Berkeley. At ASOS, the Lick tour was offered in parallel to a tour of Muir Woods and Fisherman's Wharf, and half the participants chose to go to Lick, even though we were scheduled get back past 1 am. These excursions have been big successes, and participants often told us it was one of the highlights of their participation. In this talk we describe our experiences on the tour and observing through the Great Lick Refractor, the world's second-largest refracting telescope.