Ben uses his telescope to show interesting objects at the AAUW Girls Tech Trek summer camp star party at Stanford.

The American Association of University Women offer top middle school girls the opportunity to explore science and engineering for a week at Stanford University as part of their Tech Trek Science Camp. These girls attend lectures and labs on the Stanford campus for one week in biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and engineering. By getting a hands-on feel for science, as well as the opportunity to talk to women in science and engineering, these girls are jump-started into continuing their science studies in high school.

In June 2003 as part of the fun, amateurs were invited to bring their telescopes and hold a star party. Ben Jolitz, then a middle school guy, said "It was just the greatest - all these really smart girls in science, and I'm showing them my telescope. I wouldn't have missed this for anything." Nuff said.

First, setup and check out of telescopes is needed before the star party audience shows up. Ben works with his dad to move and setup his 50-inch long f/8.5 reflector. This telescope and fork mount were built by his grandfather (see "Where Ben's Scope came from") and dad, from hand-grinding the mirrors to designing and building the fork.

Ben has since taken this telescope over and refined it further, even using it for a prize-winning science fair project in June of 2004 at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship (see "Benjamin Jolitz Wins Science Fair Award"). This telescope is easily the most popular of the Jolitz family scopes, and Ben has to keep little kids from climbing on it in operation.

Once everything is set up, the girls arrive - 125 of them. These top-students are smart, fun, and witty, and full of questions. After an initial orientation around the sky by one of the professors, the girls wander about to look through telescopes and ask loads of questions.

Well, Ben really did have a crowd of girls around. And loved every minute of it. He advises every guy to get into astronomy and work at the AAUW Stanford Tech Trek Star Party. He says that, unlike Dilbert, you don't have to go to the moon anymore guys to find girls who like science and engineering.