Astronomers in Sydney's Eastern Surburbs

[hickny]

Hi All Astromomers in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
I am teaching at Randwick Girls' High School and have recently been taking my 8" DOB to school on evenings for our students to view the night sky. As it is the International Year of Astronomy I thought that other Eastern Suburbs astromoners interested in sharing their scopes might like to join me. My school Principal is supportive of the idea and I have in mind Friday 4th April in line with 100 hours of astronomy. If I can get interested people to PM me we can nut out an event that will share this fascinating hobby and hopefully satisfy many.
The students and parents who have attended my sessions this year have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Let me know.:thumbsup:
Hickny

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

I'd be interested in assisting. You can see from my signature what is available, 3 telescopes, assorted eyepieces, and I am a former TAFE teacher as well, so understand the milieu.

Let me know, PM or here.

Cheers

[hickny]

Bump

Silly me I meant Friday 3rd April. Now there are two of us willing to take our scopes to Randwick Girls' High School between 8pm and 9:30pm to show the night sky to anyone interested as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy. If you'd like to bring a scope to this event drop a reply.

:hi:

[hickny]

The event is now registered with 100 Hours of Astronomy see http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/component/eventlist/details/696

Come and join us:hi:

[iceman]

Great stuff Peter, good luck with it!

[mental4astro]

I'm in:hi:.

I've PM'ed intrest.

Only thing is, should I notify the school or go through yourself?

[hickny]

Thanks (iceman)
With 3 of us onboard now all we need is clear skies.
Anybody else interested???
http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/component/eventlist/details/696

[norm]

Hi Peter,

I just need to ensure I can get my car close enough to where the viewing will take place, other than that, count me in. :thumbsup:

Clears Skies,

Norm:)

[hickny]

:welcome:on board Norm. I've PM you details of parking on the night. There are now 4 of us. This is getting very exciting.

[lacad01]

PM sent :)

[hickny]

Thanks :thumbsup:to mental2astro for the 4" reflector. I had it out Wednesday morning for the girls to view the moon. About 50-60 students and a few teachers had a look and the response was truly :)positive from each and every of them. Many had said that they'd been to Sydney Observator but had unrewarding experiences as the clouds had rolled in and spoilt the viewing on their night.
I took the scope to our outside assembly and advertised the 3rd April viewing.
I have emailed each of the local DET schools and will contact the local paper next week.

On Wednesday evening I had 15 participants including parents and older siblings. Saturn proved a winner with everyone.:eyepop: I showed it last.

To the people bringing scopes on 3rd April ... Do you need anything?

Can you email me how many scopes you intend to bring so I have some idea?

Clear skies (fingers crossed)

[hickny]

It looks lik ewe have a minimum of 7 scopes at present. Lots of schools have been notified and even pre-schools. If you can think of any other way to drum up interest let me know.:shrug:

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

You could let everyone know I will be there :whistle::doh::help: Hmmm perhaps not then :screwy:

Any screen sprinting or similar in the School? Maybe a big sign on the School fence (you may already have one, in which case apologies).

Cheers

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Attached is a list of suggestions as backup objects or whatever for the night.

Cheers

[Wavytone]

With first quarter moon and skyglow in Randwick, i'd suggest you can scratch most if not all the galaxies as far as the public is concerned.

On new moon maybe possible (having looked at some of these last night from Waverton) but not at 1st quarter.

[GeoffW1]

I ought to report you for a negative post :lol::lol::lol::lol:

What a wet blanket:P:P:P:P:P...........not serious, it is all true.

I have in mind showing the participants what the real restrictions are. I'm already worried about them expecting things to be as colourful as they see in books.

Cheers

[mental4astro]

Hey all,

This 'Earth Hour' thing is a blessing in disguise for us as astro-fans: awareness into excessive power consumption through functions as this can only benefit both our passion and the climate :D.

I can see less today with my 10" f/5 scope than my 5" f/10 SCT 18 yrs ago.

We all have to travel further and further away for dark skys, :violin:.

Here is an opportunity to raise awareness of reducing consumption, climate change sceptic or not, pollution of all types benifits no one, :(.

Passion drives us, so other than a blackout, we'll have to do our best to show-case the sky, :stargaze:.

Galaxies, well quite likely not, still, ET might show, :P.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

That is an excellent viewpoint to take at this astro evening, I will try it.

Cheers

[mental4astro]

Geoff,

I wonder how many people have been turned off astronomy because their first glimpse through a scope did not resemble what Hubble shows us.

How many scopes have only seen one or two nights for this.

Ours is one of subtle and delicate details.

I wonder how "extreme astronomy" might manifest itself, :atom:?

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Yes, I believe that is a problem. I know two friends who never use their telescopes now, one of them the person who got me started.

There is an active thread about it all here also, where the solution is to use this forum to find out as much as you can about what avenues there are.

I was fortunate because my thing is looking at double stars, and that pastime is not as badly affected.

What is "extreme astronomy", is it observing in winter while naked? :P:whistle:

Cheers

[hickny]

The weather looks like we can go :rofl:ahead. Setting up from 6:30 pm onwards. Advertised starting time 8pm concluding at 9:30.

See you all there:hi:

[hickny]

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to the FANTASTIC telescope providers for our Telescope Viewing at Randwick Girls' High School tonight. To Geoffw1, Norm, Mental4astro, lacado1 and Shane you guys ROCK!!!
Well over 70 people had the very great pleasure of viewing the night sky through a variety of scopes. And what a night, crystal clear skies, by 9:15 we could even make out the Milky Way. The Jewel Box, aCen, Saturn, Moon, M42, 47Tuc, eta Carina, Omega Cen the list goes on Rigel, Betelguese were seen by all who attended. Visitors from overseas, locals from pre-schools, students, teachers, whole families were fascinated.
If your an amateur and you have wondered if you should do something like show the night sky give it a go. We had a buzz.

[lacad01]

Hey Peter, thanks for organizing last night. Turned out to be a really good night and was great to meet the other guys involved as well. Biggest buzz was hearing a lot of "Oh wow!" as people put eye to glass for the very first time.
Lots of interesting questions too which stretched my astro theory a bit :ashamed:, but hey, it's just fuelled my curiosity to learn more :).
Great meeting yourself, Colin, Alex, Shane and Geoff.

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

It was a great night, Peter definitely had found the weather control dial, I'm sure.

At 3pm over my way it had just showered, and cloud cover was total. But Peter adjusted the dial, and got it right. It was a very pleasing community effort, let's all hope we sparked an astronomy career or two (could happen :jump2:).

Cloud cover stayed away until we had given everyone a look, and even then it crept up only slowly so that the timing was perfect. I hope you in other locations were all as lucky.

Sky glow was I thought quite noticable, but it did not stop us or our participating audience. There were lots of very challenging questions asked, and I found myself calling on all the explaining skills I had learned from 25 years in the classroom (TAFE).

This means if I did not know the answer I synthesised it :whistle:

I'd just like to mention here that one outcome of the night is that Randwick Girls' High has gained itself a donated 8" Bintel Dob and a couple of eyepieces. Well done Peter.

I've attached a few photos of the night's participants.

Cheers

[norm]

It was great night and it even better giving people the opportunity to look thru some scopes.

It was definitely a busy night with a steady flow off curious onlookers and although not perfect conditions it appears we were able to pull it off in the end. :D

It was good to meet Alex, Geoff, Adam as well.:thumbsup:

Good effort on Peter's behalf and as Geoff said, hopefully we may have inspired some into the world of astronomy.



Yeah, I think I did the same too Geoff, more than once.:doh::whistle:

[hickny]

The generosity :thanks:of the IceInSpace community is overwhelming. GeoffW1 donating an 8" DOB to the school and mental4astro donating a 4" reflector as well means that the students at our school will be well placed to continue :astron:observing for some time to come.
Synthesised aswers?? I was extremely :bowdown:impressed with the knowledge of the entire crew well done guys!:thumbsup:

[mental4astro]

Peter, Adam, Norm, Shane & Geoff,

It was a great pleasure to meet you and share in a passion will hold in common.

The night turned into a memorable event with the week's cloud and rain backing off just for the two hours we showed off the sky's treasures to inquisitive minds, young and old.

I reckon the hands-down winner for the night, again, was ol' Saturn, with two, three and even four return visits to the eyepiece by some guests.

An event I would be glad the partake in again. This coming winter!! (BRRRRRR!)

Alex

[lacad01]

I'll second that :)
Norm, sorry mate I got your name wrong in one of my posts, thought your name was Colin :screwy: So there goes, I have a worse memory of names than you :lol:

[hickny]

Hi,
On Friday evening 1 May, Geoff (GeoffW1), Peter (hickny), and Adam (lacad01) got together at the oval of Randwick Girls’ High School (RGHS) in Sydney.

Conditions were clear to begin with, seeing was average (for metro Sydney), and sky-glow quite noticeable as you would expect, with Port Botany not far away. We had two 200 mm dobs, a 300 mm dob with Argo Navis, a variety of eyepieces, and an Astronomik CLS sky-glow filter to try out.

We began with the usual suspects, viewing.

Saturn – the rings were a little more face on for this night.

Omega Centauri – always a morale booster!

47 Tucanae - low in the sky-glow to begin with, but improving.

NGC 2808 - found by Adam, good spotting.

M44, Praesepe - or the Beehive Cluster. This was very close to the Moon.

M4 – the Cat’s Eye Cluster. This is the closest known globular cluster.

We could see the bright bar of stars for which it is named - www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/1162628 (http://www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/1162628)
NGC 3372, around Eta Carina - still a great sight despite the light pollution

M104. the Sombrero Galaxy - we had not expected to be able to pick up a galaxy at this location, so this was a plus.

To celebrate Peter broke out his home brew, and several very enjoyable ales were had. If all you Sydney members had ever tasted these, you would have mobbed the occasion.

NGC 3242, the Ghost of Jupiter – very bright and bluish green in colour. This pretty sight was found for us by Argo Navis, as the region does not show many nearby stars in the finderscope when there is light pollution as we had.

To align the other two scopes on it we shone Peter’s laser pointer so that it was centred in the view of the finderscope which was already fixed on NGC 3242, and the beam being quite easily visible this way, the other 2 scopes could be lined up on the same spot.

We looked for a few double stars, beginning with the always spectacular Rigel Kent, Acrux, and also Upsilon Carinae. Splitting Sirius was too ambitious as it became low in the West.

Geoff had trouble with his dob falling out of collimation, which he attributed to cooling effects. The scope had been taken out of a warm car and set up immediately.

The other 2 dobs performed well, confirming that a good 200 mm dob has plenty of aperture even for suburban sites.

This was second occasion that we had met at RGHS, the first being the 100 hours of astronomy event on April 3rd. Unfortunately Alex (mental4astro) and Norm (Norm) both had work commitments this time.

We are planning on meeting again in the future. If you are interested, Watch This Space.

Thanks to Geoff for writing the report.

[hickny]

Hi all,
alex and I are thinking of getting together this weekend on the school oval. At this stage we are planning for Friday evening with Sunday evening as a backup. You are welcome to join us.
Also a reminder that I am planning a Galilean Nights Event on Friday 23rd October from 7pm until 9pm or maybe later if you like. On the oval just like we did back in April. The more scopes the better. I hope you can make it. I had a go at registering this event but don't seem to be able to find the details at the moment.

[hickny]

Try this address http://iya.aao.gov.au/astronomy2009/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=33&extmode=view&extid=546