Elegant Observatory August 18, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Physics.Tags: observatory, Parkes, telescope
add a comment
Today’s Guardian has an article about a wonderful new observatory in England of all places. The article isn’t in the science section but rather in the architecture section. The observatory in question is the Keildor Observatory in Northumberland. This is a wonderful new building; 20 inch and 14 inch telescopes, a viewing platform and a warm room for those chilly winter nights are powered by a combination of wind and solar sources linked to batteries. A compost toilet provides the other essential.
The observatory appears different from the traditional dome or slide-off roof of smaller observatories. It looks positively Scandinavian with it rectangular, wooden structure. I’d love to visit it in the future.
The Guardian article also mentions five other stunning observatories - fortunately our own Parkes radio telescope is among them.
New NASA Image Portal July 28, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy.Tags: Astronomy, images, NASA, space
add a comment
NASA have just released a new image portal, NASA Images. It:
is a service of Internet Archive ( www.archive.org ), a non-profit library, to offer public access to NASA’s images, videos and audio collections. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers.
The interface is uncluttered with the key structure providing you a choice of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Astronauts for media. Below this is an interactive Spaceflight Timeline going from Explorer in 1958 to the ISS in 2010 at present.
The site seemed to be struggling last night, possibly due to it being mentioned on Slashdot. I was able to access it easily enough this morning. The search toll seems to work well and you are able to customise your display to some extent. A search provides a range of media including images, movies and animations.Moving the mouse over an thumbnail brings up a media summary which is quite handy.
If you register (free) you can create your own media groups and presentations. You are also able to embed these or other content in applications, blogs or websites using the web widgets tool. I’ll need to explore this further.
This looks like becoming an essential first stop for media for NASA missions and discoveries by their space-based observatories.
Australia Telescope Compact Array Open Day July 16, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.add a comment
The Australia Telescope Compact Array, at Culgoora, near Narrabri in north-western NSW is holding an Open Day on Saturday 19th July from 10 am to 4 pm. The telescope is part of the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility that also includes radio telescopes at Mopra, near Coonabarabran, and the famous Dish at Parkes. These open days are only held every two years and provide a rare opportunity for the public to tour inside an antenna and the control building.
Activities include:
- Antenna tours
- Control building tours
- Astronomer talks
- Ask an expert
- Art Display
There will be other activities onsite and food and drink will be available. For more details visit the Open Day page.
Introducing the Plutoids. June 12, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.add a comment
Welcome Pluto and Eris, the first of the Plutoids. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has finally resolved the naming of Solar System objects such as Pluto. At their General Assembly in Prague in 2006 the IAU voted to reclassify Pluto. It was no longer a planet but instead was known as a dwarf planet. At the time terms such as pluton were suggested but this was already used in geology. From the media release:
Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris.
Ceres does not qualify as it resides in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
There is a useful teaching resource about the initial naming controversy that is freely available from the Astronomy Education Review site. This provides teachers and other educators with some effective learning strategies.
GLAST launched successfully. June 12, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy.add a comment
The GLAST spacecraft launched successfully from Florida at 12.05 pm EDT today. It is now in orbit about 560 km above the Earth with solar arrays deployed. A launch image is shown below (credit: NASA TV).
GLAST ready for launch, June 11. June 11, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy.add a comment
The GLAST satellite is ready for launch. It is scheduled for launch on a Delta II Heavy rocket with a launch window from 11:45 a.m. - 1:40 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 11.
Astronomy Ambassador Summer School at ARCC, UTB June 10, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education, ICT, Physics.2 comments
I’m here in the Sci-fi looking Arecibo Remote Command Center (ARCC) within the Center for Gravitational Wave Astrophysics (CGWA) at University of Texas Brownsville. I’m surrounded by a keen if slightly nervous group of high school students from Texas and Puerto Rico who are about to embark on a three-week long Astronomy Ambassadors summer school. This is one of three summer schools, the others in computer science and mathematics, that the university is running over the next few weeks.
Students meet at 10 am each day for a subject-specific session that is then followed by a scientist from the university or elsewhere giving a lecture to the combined groups. Today’s talk will be about gamma-ray bursts. The afternoon session is a two-hour lab with a range of activities. I’m only here for the first four days as I fly home to Australia on Friday. Nonetheless I’m looking forward to working with the students on some introductory activities and giving Wednesday’s talk to the whole group about telescopes of the world.
Unfortunately I miss out on the camping trip next week to western Texas. There the students will construct their own Dobsonian telescope that they get to keep then use it under the dark skies of the region to observe the stars. They will also visit McDonald Observatory, home of the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberley Telescope and other telescopes.
When I arrived at ARCC late Friday afternoon they were busy mounting large, flat-screen LCD displays from the ceiling and walls. On Saturday afternoon there was a welcome and briefing for the five new undergraduates who have just been accepted as ARCC Scholars. They have a four-year program at UTB studying Physics and related subjects whilst working closely with scientists at the CGWA and using the ARCC to observe pulsars using the famous 300 m Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
On Sunday we welcomed the students and parents involved in the Astronomy Ambassadro program. They were able t observe an actual observing session at Arecibo conducted by UTB students using the ARCC as you can see below.
ASP Symposium: Weekend Workshops - Day One June 2, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.6 comments
I arrived in St Louis on Friday night after a long flight from Australia sans luggage. Oh well! Fortunately Jim Small from the St Louis Astronomical Society helped me out by taking we down to a couple of Jazz/Blues bars near the BUSCH Stadium where the local Cardinals were playing Pittsburgh (baseball). Had a nice Cajun meal, a few restorative beers and managed to buy a t-shirt from BBs so I was respectable for the following day’s workshop. Just got back to the hotel before a massive thunderstorm struck. Lots of others didn’t quite make it so there were many drenched people arriving in the hotel lobby. Thunder and sleep don’t mix hen combined with jet lag so only got a few hours sleep.
Saturday saw day one of the weekend workshops organised by the ASP. Three were on offer and I had selected Amateur Astronomers as Champions of IYA 2009. This turned out to be a sound choice as the workshop had a range of presenters and topics and gave overview of some IYA activities an how amateurs can get involved. I’ll try and summarise the sessions below.
- The workshop was introduced and hosted by Marni Berendsen and Vivian White from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
- First topic was by Sun-Earth Day Opportunities by Lou Mayo and Isabel Hawkins.
- Marin and Vivian then gave an overview of of the IYA Program for Amateur Astronomers.
- Stephen Pompea and Rob Spark from NOAO presented Teaching with the Galileoscope in the IYA. This was a really useful session and I was impressed how the team working on the Galileoscope have reined the concept and have what appears to be a workable, flexible and engaging solution. he plan now is for a scope with about 45x magnification, 1 degree field of view and a large eye relief. This will give a telescope that is suitable for urban students to view the Moon and the planets. The telescope can also double a an optical lab and is reusable so different groups can construct their own telescope. The aim is a scope for about $10 per unit.
- Following lunch Vivian showed us how to make a comet from dry ice and some other ingredients. This is always a fun activity. An engaging addition was getting each group to design and decorate their own Comet Cook aprons.
- Brian Day introduced us to LCROSS, (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite) a lunar mission that will send a Centaur rocket stage crashing into a polar crater on the Moon. The collision and resulting cloud of ejecta will be monitored by the LCROSS probe following 4 minutes behind. They hope to find evidence of water in the cloud. One point that grabbed my attention was the that high school students in the GAVRT scheme using the 32m dish at Goldstone will be monitoring the LCROSS trajectory from the Earth to the Moon. Depending on the launch date (currently projected as late December 08) this could take a few months. Brian and I chatted about the possibility of some Australian students involved in PULSE@Parkes also getting involved and observing the probe. Marni then consolidated this by presenting some cratering activities and simulations including the bowl of flour dusted with cocoa powder and some useful hints as how to maximise the impact (pardon the pun) of these.
- Dark Skies from the Ground up: Amateur Astronomers as Ambassadors for GLOBE at Night covered by Connie Walker from NOAO and Dark Skies Discovery Sites by Terry Mann from the Astronomical League. GLOBE at Night is a wonderful project set up by Connie and her team. It runs during March each year and involves anyone going outside at night, finding Orion the trying to compare what they see with one of six diagrams available from the website. There is an excellent range of online and support materials. What I particularly like is that it is designed for use anywhere and caters for southern hemisphere observers
After a long but stimulating day I returned to the hotel to find that my luggage had finally arrived intact! I didn’t have much time to relax though as I was soon heading off with a group about 30 km out of St Louis for a great party at Pamela Gay of StarStryder and Astronomy Cast fame’s home. This was a wonderful way to end the day and meet lots of people. I finally met Phil Plait (of Bad Astronomy) and Chris Lintott having been a regular reader of all their blogs. Phil in his former employment had worked on the GLAST Outreach materials whilst Chris is one of the team heading up Galaxy Zoo. I’ll be attending their workshop on new media in astronomy on day two. Another heavy thunderstorm enlivened the evening but was mixed with some fine food, beer and conversation.
Off to the USA - ASP/AAS Joint Meeting May 30, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, Education.1 comment so far
I’m about to fly across across the Pacific to St Louis, Missouri for a joint meeting between the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the American Astronomical Society. The theme for the ASP meeting is Preparing for the International Year of Astronomy, a Hands-On Symposium. This starts on Saturday 31 may with two days of IYA-related workshops then three days for the actual ASP meeting. The AAS conference runs from Monday to Thursday. I’ll be attending the weekend workshops and the four days of meeitngs. I have a poster paper about ATNF Education Initiatives plus a 10-minute oral presentation on Tuesday about PULSE@Parkes.
I’m looking forward to this trip! I’ve been to few ASP meetings, the last in Tucson three years ago, so it will be good to catch up with some American colleagues and meet many new ones. It will be my first AAS meeting though so this should be interesting. ATNF has a display in the exhibitor’s hall so we should get lots of visitors.
Hopefully between long days and conference dinners and evening events I’ll get a chance to post some useful and interesting educational and astronomy items.
Sydney Observatory celebrates 150 years. May 29, 2008
Posted by astroed in Astronomy, ICT, Physics.1 comment so far
Sydney Observatory’s time ball was first dropped at 12 noon on 5 June 1858. To celebrate this the Observatory has a series of events over the next few weeks. A new flagstaff will be officially opened on the 7th. The Observatory plays a key role in communicating astronomy and science to the public and has a stunning location at atop The Rocks, overlooking the harbour and the bridge.
- Monday 2 June at 6:30 pm - A talk on the history of Sydney Observatory by Nick Lomb - “Rise, fall and rise again: the tale of Sydney Observatory”
- Thursday 5 June - media preview of the new Observing the weather exhibition, the reinstalled giant flagmast and the renovated Fort Phillip Signal Station
- Saturday 7 June, Sunday 8 June & Monday 9 June Open weekend with the anniversary speeches, the anniversary dropping of the time ball and the ceremonial raising of the flags on the Saturday morning
- Friday 13 June 6:30 pm - A talk by Fred Watson - “Why is Uranus upside down?” - followed by telescope viewing
- Saturday 14 June - seminar on the history of Australian meteorology - Target Theatre, Powerhouse Museum
- Sunday 15 June - seminar on the history of Australian astronomy - Target Theatre, Powerhouse Museum
- Friday 4 July and Saturday 5 July from 6 pm - the annual “Festival of the stars
The seminars on the 14th and 15th of June include a great range of speakers and cover a diverse range of topics including Aboriginal astronomy by Ray Norris from the ATNF and the history of The Dish at Parkes.
Thanks to Nick Lomb from Sydney Observatory for these details.
