I believe that it did help. Prior to that I would get sets of photos forwarded a few times a year. There was never enough information or context with them to make any kind of reasonable identification. I decided to change the dynamic a bit by teaching them how to gather data that is useful in providing context for photos. In addition to the software tools I described I also helped them pick out a real telescope, binoculars with good low light performance, a digital camera that takes good photos in low light, etc. I walked them through all the things that a researcher would need to know so that they could determine whether it was swamp gas or something unusual and not explained by all the natural things that one can expect for that date and place. The next set of photos I got had GPS coords of observation location, arrows on google maps showing line of sight for each photo, photos of near-field showing cultural things that can be tied to maps and satellite views with the subject of the photo in view in the sky. A set of progressive zooms thru the digital camera so that one could see the cultural features and the subject in the same view but at zoomed resolution, progressive zooms to the full camera extent and then zooms taken through one side of binoculars using the digital camera and the same through the telescope. Everything had a ground truth location for the viewer, physical context including line of sight, elevation above horizon, time of day, you could infer weather, etc.

Photo series like that allowed me to help them understand the changes in a star or planet as viewed from a single location. For example Sirius, the Dog Star in Canis Major has a high rotation rate. It rapidly flashes and really draws the eye as one of the brightest objects when it is visible. As it nears the horizon and the effects of the light passing through an increasingly thicker layer of shitty air act on the light it is seen to flash through the spectrum - red, green, yellow, blue, white, etc very rapidly. By having them spend the time at one location observing one known sparkly thing as it slowly moved toward the horizon they were able to learn things they had never thought about. I helped them understand how to measure time at night when all you have are shiny things in the sky or the moon. We had an opportunity to really cover a lot of ground.

The person was and still is paranoid. That is a side effect of early use and a lifetime use of pot and the whole environment that was in place at the time - war on drugs, etc. Back then, dopeheads were paranoid about anyone they didn't know potentially being a narc. Trust of the unknown was near zero with that group.

Though this person was paranoid they were not stupid. They're very bright but life had taken them on a path around a university education so a lot of the science-related things that are common knowledge to most were outside anything they had ever thought about.

As it is today, I haven't heard from them in a good while. I'm pretty sure they have the tools and skills now to help them answer those questions for themselves in a satisfying way. I think they have less distrust of science than before so that is a big plus for me. Knowledge is power.