In the spring, members of our junior affiliate, the Texas Society of Young Astronomers, students at Rosemont 6th Grade Center, Fort Worth ISD, entered their crayon drawings of Chandra X-ray Images in the Astronomical Society of the Pacific's "Seeing the Invisible" Children's Art Contest.  We brought up the Chandra site on the computers in the library and the students drew the images directly off of the computer screen.

At the ASP meeting in St.Paul, the 54 drawings were exhibited in the registration area between the Teacher Workshop rooms and the Chandra Xray Symposium room, so they had a lot of "exposure".  I was surprised at the enthusiasm over the drawings, especially from the Chandra High Energy Astrophysicists.  Two drawings, X-ray Images of the Crab Nebula, by students, Noe Vallin and Santos Castillo, are being published in the "BeamLine", the Stanford Linear Accelator magazine.  Virginia Trimble, noted astrophysicist at UCal/Irvine and at U.Maryland, saw them on display and wanted them.  (She had written her thesis years ago on the Crab Nebula.)  She is using them to accompany an article she is publishing in the "BeamLine" in Nov/Dec.  The X-ray image of Crab Nebula looks like a bell.  Virginia calls the drawings her "Crayon Crabs".  She is really a special person.  She lost her husband about ten months before the ASP meeting.  She told me at the conference that she had published 90 articles in the last ten months...an amazing lady.

There was another neat thing for the kids.  Martin Ward, an astrophysicist from the University of Leichester, UK, borrowed three of the drawings, made colored transparencies of them, and used them to introduce his symposium presentation, "X-ray Images in Star-Forming Galaxies."  He added what a great job the kids had done and that the display added lively interest to their symposium.  Students' images he used were: Josue Rodriguez's "Black Hole Binary and Neutron Star Binary Compared", Diana De La Rosa's "Binary Black Hole System - J1118 + 480", and Erica Sigala's "Comparing Optical and X-ray View of an NGC Galaxy".

Placing in the contest were: 2nd Place: Diana De La Rosa "Binary Black Hole System" and 3rd Place: Jessica Sigala "Cygnus X-3 with a Scattering Halo".  These two, and others, are displayed on the ASP web site. At www.astrosociety.org/events/2001mtg/artcontest/artcontest.html.

I've been riding on this wave for a while -- the 54 drawings are right now on display at the Fort Worth Administration Building at University Plaza in the first floor hallway art exhibit area.

FWAS Acknowledgements: Thank you, Tres Ross, for your March program on Chandra X-ray Images, which got me to thinking about Chandra for the kids to draw.

(Sallie Teames is a long time FWAS and ASP member, FWISD science teacher, and local sponsor of Texas Society of Young Astronomers.)