Astronomers in Sydney's Eastern Surburbs - Page 2

hickny (Peter) · #21 03-04-2009, 05:13 PM

The weather looks like we can go

ahead. Setting up from 6:30 pm onwards. Advertised starting time 8pm concluding at 9:30.

See you all there

hickny (Peter) · #22 03-04-2009, 11:02 PM

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 (Adam) · #23 04-04-2009, 08:01 AM

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

, but hey, it's just fuelled my curiosity to learn more

.
Great meeting yourself, Colin, Alex, Shane and Geoff.

GeoffW1 (Geoff) · #24 04-04-2009, 09:28 PM

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

).

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

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 · #25 04-04-2009, 11:57 PM

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.

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

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

Quote:

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

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

hickny (Peter) · #26 05-04-2009, 08:28 AM

The generosity

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

observing for some time to come.
Synthesised aswers?? I was extremely

impressed with the knowledge of the entire crew well done guys!

mental4astro (Alexander) · #27 05-04-2009, 08:40 PM

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 (Adam) · #28 05-04-2009, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mental4astro

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

Alex

I'll second that

Norm, sorry mate I got your name wrong in one of my posts, thought your name was Colin

So there goes, I have a worse memory of names than you

hickny (Peter) · #29 03-05-2009, 09:52 AM

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
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 (Peter) · #30 23-09-2009, 12:43 PM

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 (Peter) · #31 23-09-2009, 12:46 PM

Try this address http://iya.aao.gov.au/astronomy2009/...view&extid=546