How frustrating : Viewing nights for Yr 11 Physics

[batema]

Hi,

I suppose there are two reasons for this thread.


I have just cancelled my third Monday night in a row in which my Yr 11 Physics students were to come and work on their optics assignment. We have been learning about telescopes and how the work and as part of their assignment they were to come to our oval and in groups of 5 they would rotate through 4 stations. Station 1 would have students taling Star trails, Station 2 was to have kids with a 40D piggybacked to a C8 imaging constellations, station 3 had students photographing Eta Carina and Omega Centauri through Skywatcher ED80 guided PHD and station 4 was to image through W/O Flt110 M83 and Centaurus A. After 30 minutes they would rotate so each group would try different skills. Tomorrow we go to the lab and stack and basic process them. NOT HAPPENING. Great weather.
Given that the school has a 12 "DOB and ED 80 withW/O 66 as guide scope on Heq5 Pro but we are using our own personal camera's can anyone suggest other equipment that may be usefull to purchase as we just got wind that some membners of the P&C are happy with what my mate and I are doing in terms of ASTRONOMY and there may be funds we could apply for if we new what else would benefit our kids.
Thanks

Mark :(

[marki]

Mark I have been extremely lucky every time I have run astro nights at school as the weather has always held but I can understand your situation. How long have you allowed for the assignment to be completed???

If the P & C want to give you money go for all you can get I say :D. Once you have the cash I am sure you will work out what you really need ;). I have been trying to set up an observatory at my school for yonks and so far have submitted about 5 applications for funding to no avail :(. Perhaps I should remove the 30" RCOS and go for something a little more modest:).

Mark

[batema]

No IUlove the sound of a 30" RCOS. I think I would burn all my bridges in one go but good to dream.

Mark

[marki]

Haha. I really priced for either 14" LX200 ACF on a wedge or Celestron C14 on a G11 with a small sirius (2.7m) dome and a QHY8. The bean counters won't have a bar of it right now but I am persistant if nothing else.

Mark

[batema]

I'm up for a QHY8 and a DMK webcam to start with. I often use my W/O Flt 110 with the kids and our club but the other teacher and myself use our own camera 400D and 1000D. A cooled CCD camera would be great. I'm also curious about spectroscopy but the $$$$$$ are to great. Would like to find a cheap alternative so kids can image the sspectra of stars. I don't know if I'm dreaming about this.

Mark

[marki]

I have seen some bits and pieces available to analyse spectra but for the life of me I can't remember where (may have been a catalogue or something similar floating around the office:shrug:). I do remember it was not overly expensive and I am sure some folks on this site have a better idea then me. Try Merlin66 as I think he is right into spectral analysis.

Mark

[Barrykgerdes]

I have a program that uses a telescope to analyse the spectra and a program to make a suitable diffraction grating to put over the front of the telescope.

I think I down loaded the the program from the Meade site some years ago but I think I googled it and found a later version.

I have a little hand held spectroscope used for analysing liquids etc. It is fun to hold it up to a flouro and look at the limited emissions they give off.

Barry

[theodog]

Star Analyser100 P-H in England (under $200 delivered) and the analysis program VSpec (free from the net).
Look at the Spectroscopy thread in the Radio Astronomy and Spectroscopy forum.
Easy to do its just a grating screwed into your camera nosepiece. Image as normal.
Would be a great intro for HS students.

[Wavytone]

Another excellent resource for interested highschool kids is "A Workbook for Astronomy" by Gerry Waxman. While its a little old (1984) it's full of experiments kids can do with a scope, a digital camera and some ingenuity with the average PC.

[coldspace]

In terms of other equipment that could benifit your kids, why don't you look at an astrovideo system such as a Mallincam HPC camera or Stellacam 3.
These cameras have cooling and can have longer exposure intergrating times so they can reach real deep even in light polluted areas and can also be used on the moon and planets.
While you have them using other "work stations" a group can be viewing lots of objects on a CRT or LCD monitor and discussing what the object is and how it came to be while looking at it in real time. You don't need to polar align just basic tracking will do and they can view lots of things in an hour so this would keep some excitement up for them as these cameras are alot of fun to use and easy set up and pack up.
The stellacam is monochrome and the Mallin cam is in colour although it only shows the brighter objects such as M20 or M42 in colour and faint fuzzies come through in Monochrome.
I use the Mallincam and its a blast.
Here are some examples of the performance of one of these video systems.
The first lot of images are similar to what I get through a 12 inch scope in suburbia in a raw live view on the monitor with no processing, the second lot of images have been stacked and adjusted a little.
http://equatorialplatforms.com/mallincam.imaging.with.a.platform.h tml

They are about 2 grand but you get alot of performance for your money.
Good for large group entertaining and if you want to capture the video images you can use a PC capture card or converter.

Regards Matt.

[batema]

Thanks Matt. Very interesting.

Mark

[Wavytone]

I have seen this done, out of desperation in a similar situation: Set up a small refractor aimed at a distant computer screen running a slide show.

No tracking problems and they all get a look through the scope. And the slides could be from the Hubble ;)