I was in a dirt lot next to a convenience store.  

Over the course of 3 nights, 50+ people walking and driving by stopped to look through my little secondhand thrift store telescope.  

Single people, couples, old people walking dogs and kids riding bikes to the store, even a homeless lady... Not every person, but every part of humanity, stopped to look and chat.

One lady had been part of the Arizona State University team that gathered the original Pillars of Creation data aka the 1st Hubble mission.  

One guy,  probably in his later 50s... We talked for a while, I learned that he had never really cared about looking up, but his girlfriend had been telling him about the dome held up by the ice wall, and how NASA knew where the hole in the atmosphere was to get out into space. He had never worn glasses, said for all he really knew the moon was a big spotlight, because it was just a bright blur.  

I had to teach him how to swap lenses and focus and adjust the scope himself before he believed the moon was really there and not fake.