Tuesday, April 04, 2017
Stargazing Live Starts Tonight 8:31 pm
Stargazing live is a three-night extravaganza of Australian astronomy that starts tonight on the Australian ABC at 8:31. With live broadcasts from iconic Australian observatories and images from dedicated amateurs, tonight they showcase the Milky Way, tomorrow the planets and Thursday they tackle aliens. Hosted by Professor Brian Cox and Julie Zemiro this promises to be awesome.
Tune in for astronomical goodness
Tune in for astronomical goodness
Labels: footpath astronomy, public outreach
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Images from the December 21st Lunar Eclipse
The Moon rises above the smokestacks of THX power-plant in Northern Adelaide on Tuesday December 21, 2010, with the last of the Umbra, the Earth's inner shadow, slipping off. You can see the edge of the southern part of the Moon darkened (yes, the focus is rubbish, I can't set the camera to infinity of the short exposure settings, 1/15 of a sec in this case).
Being in Adelaide, the lunar eclipse was going to be rubbish. Watching the eclipse webcams was disappointing, as everybody seemed to be clouded out. But my Mum rang up and said she could see the Moon in shadow from the window of her kitchen in Brisbane, so I thought I'd have a go at seeing what little eclipse I could get here.
So I grabbed my camera and tripod and headed off to find a flat spot without too many houses in the way. I ended up on the platform of the local railway station, where I could see the Moon rising above the power station. Gratifyingly, I could see the definite dark patch on the south edge of the Moon. It loooked far more impressive than the pictures show.
I quickly set up the camera and started taking shots, just then a train pulled up and one of my Uni friends got out, I called here over to show her the dark patch, unfortunately a somewhat inebriated person also turned up, who was far more interested in discussing romance than looking at the Moon. A third person also turned up and was directed to the Moon, he was pretty amazed.
Unfortunately for my photography, focus was a problem (I can't focus to infinity when on the short exposure settings) as was the fact that the Moon hid behind the smokestacks for a while. Still, I saw part of an unusual eclipse, and was able to share it with some other folks. A pretty good evening after all.
Labels: astrophotography, eclipse, footpath astronomy, Moon
Monday, June 22, 2009
Solstice Singing and Sightings of Saturn
Scorpio curls above my portable refractor on a rooftop garden in the heart of the city (click to embiggen)Last night was Winter Solstice here in Australia (and everywhere in the southern hemisphere generally). The Bettdeckererschnappender Weisle's choir got together for a special singing session on a rooftop garden in the heart of the city. BEW made a chocolate orange tart to take to the festivities, I took my little telescope.
The singing was fantastic. There is something about a rooftop garden that made the songs clearer to me, I could hear every voice.
And of course the location helped. It's not everyday you get to look down on a major conurbation while accompanied by wonderful song. I was surprised by the number of stars I could see in the centre of the city. I could clearly make out all the major constellations easily. Scorpio was quite easy to pick out.After the singing I showed some people Saturn (SmallestOne had already had a good look), then we went for supper. While eating supper in the apartment blocks' common room, I discovered a telescope that had been obtained for use in the rooftop garden, with a note saying it didn't work.
Intrigued, I set about trying to find out what was wrong. It turned out that the spotter scope was a) out of focus and b) pointing nowhere near where the scope was pointing. After a bit of fiddling I mostly aligned the two, and was able to show the singers the double star Alpha Centauri, the beautiful triple alpha Crucis and the Jewel box cluster (while accompanied by ukulele backed songs).
The can't be many ways to spend a better solstice (did I mention the chocolate fondue?)
Labels: footpath astronomy, home life
Monday, March 30, 2009
Earth Hour - The Star Party
We invited some friends over for Earth Hour, and I set my small telescope up on the footpath just outside our house to do some footpath astronomy. In the end we only garnered the next door neighbours though. I had set up the 4" on Saturn. I was also going to set up to little 50 mm refractor, but the objectives were nowhere to be found.People lined up to look at Saturn, and kept on looking. Eventually, after much adjusting of the scopes position. I dragged out the 8" with the drive and set that up.
Why didn't I set that up first? As I was running a bit late due to time overruns on cooking the lentil burgers, I didn't want to violate the spirit of Earth Hour by having the lights on as I navigated the massive scope through our narrow doors to out front. In the end someone with a massive torch helped guide me outside. I set the 8"scope up with a 12 mm eyepeice and a 2x barlow and left it on Saturn, where it was continually watched by a steady stream of participants. We couldn't see Titian's shadow, but we couldn't see Titan at all until late into the night, even though we could pick up Dione and Tethys. The small scope was then relegated to Orion's nebula, the Eta Carina complex and double stars.
By the time we had packed everything away, it was 11:30 pm! We had gone well beyond the "hour" of Earth Hour (and no, I didn't notice any diminution of sky glow), and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Some brief rules for a footpath astronomy star party, for what I learned that night.
1) Make sure you have all your telescopes set up well before hand, having at least two scopes really helps or one object will monopolise your time.
2) Don't set up any of your gear on the section of the path most likely to be used by your children and their friends scooters as they zoom about in between views
3) Set your gear up on a foot path which will have some traffic on it, rather than just outside your house on a very quite street.
4) Make sure you have the scope eyepiece orientated for ease of use, especially by younger participants. Always have a small stool with you so they can stand on it.
5) Make sure your finder scope really is aligned before you set things up, or most of the night will be people watching you struggle to get something into the field of view.
6) If you are doing satellite watching, make sure you are checking your "glow in the dark" watch frequently, or you will completely miss them.
7) Have fun!
Labels: footpath astronomy, Observational Astronomy
Friday, March 27, 2009
Earth Hour - Time for Some Astronomy
The western horizon as seen at 8:30 pm (local time) Saturday in Australia (click to embiggen).Earth Hour is upon us! Various city councils, businesses and local citizens will be turning off their lights from 8:30 - 9:30 pm this Saturday (28 March) in this global action to raise awareness about climate change.
For suburbanites, the sky will be darker than usual, and rather than huddle inside reading by the light of torches, why not do some astronomy?
At 8:30 pm the beautiful Pleiades cluster will be lowering to the western horizon, above that is Taurus and the "V" shape of the Hyades cluster, then above that is Orion and his belt. To the south the Southern Cross is clearly visible, with the beautiful star fields and clusters of Carina and Vela (the keel and sail of the ship Argos) are well above the horizon. If you have binoculars, then these fields are georgous to behold.
Look for satellites going over; Genisis II, Various cosmos rockets and delta stages are going across the sky from 8:30 to 9:30, why not pop over to Heavens Above and get satellite predictions for your location? There is a good Iridium flare around 7:30 pm (but that's not part of Earth hour).
If you have a telescope, small or large, why not invite friends over for an impromptu star party? If you have a small telescope, why not set it up on the footpath for some footpath astronomy and show the sky to passers by? Especially Saturn at this time. If you have a large telescope, why not try looking for the shadow transit of Titan?
So come Saturday night, why not show some support for climate change action AND take advantage of suburban dark skies?
Labels: Climate Change, footpath astronomy, Observational Astronomy, Saturn
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