Some Of Our Best Images 2009-2010

M57 Ring Nebula Sky Object Name: M57
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:37:03 UTC
RA: 18h53'36"
DEC: 33°01'40"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 4 secs.
Instrument: EM01

M92 - a globula cluster Sky Object Name: M92
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:42:01 UTC
RA: 17h17'07"
DEC: 43°08'14"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 5 secs.
Instrument: EM01

M27 Dumbell Nebula Sky Object Name: M27
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:49:39 UTC
RA: 19h59'36"
DEC: 22°43'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

NGC5907 - a sideways-on spiral galaxy in Draco Sky Object Name: NGC 5907
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:57:27 UTC
RA: 15h15'53"
DEC: 56°19'33"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 50 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Cocoon Nebula Sky Object Name: cocoon
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:36:23 UTC
RA: 21h53'24"
DEC: 47°16'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01


Triangulum Galaxy (M33) Sky Object Name: triangulum galaxy
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:44:08 UTC
RA: 1h33'54"
DEC: 30°39'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01



M101 Pinwheel Galaxy Sky Object Name: m101
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 10:25:58 UTC
RA: 14h03'13"
DEC: 54°21'02"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 70 secs.
Instrument: EM01

An open cluster Sky Object Name: m25
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jun 30, 2010 11:34:25 UTC
RA: 18h31'36"
DEC: -19°15'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 10 secs.
Instrument: EM01


Triffid Nebula Sky Object Name: m20
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jun 30, 2010 11:39:58 UTC
RA: 18h02'20"
DEC: -23°03'10"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Eagle Nebula Sky Object Name: m16
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jun 30, 2010 11:45:20 UTC
RA: 18h18'52"
DEC: -13°49'42"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Sky Object Name: M8
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: May 13, 2010 13:58:28 UTC
RA: 18h03'41"
DEC: -24°22'49"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 40 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Sky Object Name: ngc 6530
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: May 13, 2010 13:52:03 UTC
RA: 18h04'48"
DEC: -24°20'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 40 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Pinwheel Galaxy

Sky Object Name: M101

When taken: May 5, 2010 11:15:28 UTC
RA: 14h03'12"
DEC: 54°21'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 60 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Sky Object Name: Black eye galaxy
When taken: May 5, 2010 11:08:04 UTC
RA: 12h56'44"
DEC: 21°40'58"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 60 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Sky Object Name: Trifid
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Apr 20, 2010 14:58:27 UTC
RA: 18h02'20"
DEC: -23°03'10"
Filter: H-alpha
Exposure time: 100 secs.
Instrument: EM01

M87

M87

Sombrero Galaxy

Sky Object Name: m1
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 20, 2009 10:22:51 UTC
RA: 5h34'31"
DEC: 22°02'02"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 90 secs.
Instrument: EM01


Sky Object Name: m33
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 20, 2009 10:11:49 UTC
RA: 1h33'51"
DEC: 30°39'37"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 120 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Faulkes Telescope Yr 7 16th July 2010

Apart from the first image of a globular cluster, M2, (left), which didn't come up with anything, the rest of the viewing session went well.





The students controlling the telescope in Hawaii today were: Jacob Miller, Verity Game, Will Hopkins, Euan Palmer and (for a few seconds, before we ran out of time) Rhys Newman.

The sky was clear and we managed to get three good images:



M52, an open clusterSky Object Name: m52
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 16, 2010 13:57:51 UTC
RA: 23h24'48"
DEC: 61°35'36"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

m76 Little Dumbbell NebulaSky Object Name: m76
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 16, 2010 13:51:59 UTC
RA: 1h42'21"
DEC: 51°34'07"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 40 secs.
Instrument: EM01

NGC7741, a barred spiral galaxy in DracoSky Object Name: ngc7741
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 16, 2010 13:45:31 UTC
RA: 23h43'54"
DEC: 26°05'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 80 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Presentation by Dom Oram, Yr 13

This morning we were lucky enough to be treated to a presentation by sixth former, Dom Oram. He has developed his own software to re-create the complicated effects of Gravity in a planetary system.



Dom originally wrote the program in Visual-basic when he was a GCSE astronomy student a few years ago. However, since then he has changed the programing language to C++, since the original language was not powerful enough for the things he wanted it to do. He wanted the program to be able to show, not only how different masses affected a planetary system, but also wanted it to show light, colour and texture of the planets.





Over time, Dom has also added background stars and effects to show heat emitted from the planet. As well as this, if you click on any planetary body in the system, you are able to move down to ground level, and see what you would see from there in the sky (eg the sun rising and setting & it getting correspondingly lighter and darker.)







Dom's presentation captured the imagination of his audience, and they were able to ask interesting questions at the end about the program, and how Dom planned to develop it into the future. Dom will be studying physics at (Durham ?) University in September, and plans to combine it with a programming course to help him develop his project further.



From Heathfield Community college, we were delighted to welcome sixth formers (pictured below) Joe Benians, Toby Crisford and Nathan Masters, as well as their physics teacher Ms Waddington; and Mr Howard (not in picture), who will be head of 6th form in Heathfield from September. They stayed on afterwards to carry out some physics experiments after Dom's presentation.



We also welcomed Mr Clive Oram, Dom's proud father, who thorougly enjoyed the presentation.

Also watching the presentation were most of Yr12 physics groups and a few staff who missed Dom's first presentation on 21st April 2010.


Dom Oram (badge winner)

Black hole blows big gas bubble

This is, hopefully, one of many astronomy articles. Each one will cover a recent event and ask a question (answer the question correctly and get a prize). Please enjoy…

A big gas bubble was produced by a small black hole. The fiery gas bubble was 1,000 light years across. The gas expanded due to powerful particle ‘jets’ released by the black hole. The observation was made in Chile by a very big telescope and by NASA’s Chandra space observatory. When a black hole swallows matter they are known to let of high amounts of energy, thus heating the gas ball.

Astronomers say that these particle jets where the biggest they had ever seen. Roberto Soria from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London said that “If the black hole were shrunk to the size of a soccer ball, each jet would extend from the Earth to beyond the orbit of Pluto”. They are surprised because the size of the black hole was small compared to others yet it produced these huge jets and a hot gas ball.

If any readers want to locate it, it is in the spiral galaxy NGC 7793. And finally, for the question. Are there any pictures of black holes? Thanks for reading. Check again for more articles and news!

Wadhurst Primary School 14th July 2010

Today, Mr Pert visited Wadhurst Primary School and showed the Faulkes Telescope to two year groups (Yr4 & Yr5). Luckily, though rain was forecast for today (and they were getting some on neighbouring islands of Hawaii), there was no sign of it over Haleakalu, the mountain where the telescope is.

Four beautiful images were taken, the last of which (NGC 5907) we haven't taken a picture of before, and we are delighted with. Often the pictures we take of spiral galaxies are face-on [like looking down on a dinner plate), which makes for a dramatic image. This galaxy, however, is sideways-on [like bending down and looking at the plate on the table at eye-level]. We hope the pupils of Wadhurst Primary School enjoyed it as much as we did.


M57 Ring Nebula Sky Object Name: M57
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:37:03 UTC
RA: 18h53'36"
DEC: 33°01'40"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 4 secs.
Instrument: EM01

M92 - a globula cluster Sky Object Name: M92
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:42:01 UTC
RA: 17h17'07"
DEC: 43°08'14"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 5 secs.
Instrument: EM01

M27 Dumbell Nebula Sky Object Name: M27
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:49:39 UTC
RA: 19h59'36"
DEC: 22°43'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

NGC5907 - a sideways-on spiral galaxy in Draco Sky Object Name: NGC 5907
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 14, 2010 10:57:27 UTC
RA: 15h15'53"
DEC: 56°19'33"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 50 secs.
Instrument: EM01

What am I?

I am a lone wolf, or should you say traveller
Drifting from place to place
Every now and then I get a kick and a prod
Some call me a waste of space

I have many brothers and sisters
A key to a forgotten land
But just to let you know
I am bigger than a grain of sand

And as time goes by
I wonder, what am I?

.
.
.
.
.
by Jack Morgan (Yr9) Badge Winner
(Editor)

St Richard's Gifted & Talented Yr8s

Yesterday, Mr Pert and seven Yr8 students from Uplands [Charlie Oliver, Oscar Silburn, Amy Walter, Reece Lyons, Amie Smith, Cambell Chase & Joe Smiles] attended a Gifted & Talented conference at St Richard's Catholic College in Bexhill. We were one of eight schools invited.

The highlight for the 60-odd G&T students (and Mr Pert) was the star of the morning, Johny Ball, who gave a very entertaining talk on mathematics in many forms, including topics as varied as the Egyptian Pyramids and binary numbers! As those who remember him, from television shows back in the 1970s to 1990s, might guess, Mr Ball applied his usual sense of humour and enthusiasm to his favourite topic!

Some schools (including Chailey, Grove (Hastings), Bexhill high and Uplands) remained after lunch to participate in the afternoon's Science Masterclasses. The students had the choice of three workshop groups: solar telescope; spectroscopy (flame tests based on Einstein's e=hf) and a Faulkes Telescope session run by Mr Pert.

Faulkes Telescope group:
Before the time they were booked to take control of the Faulkes Telescope in Hawaii at 2.30pm (BST), the students in Mr Pert's workshop had plenty of opportunity to talk about the telescope and to use the Stellarium program to explore the Hawaiian night sky in advance. They chose several interesting objects they would like to view and take images of. Normally, Mr Pert will check the images are within the telescope's range, and not too close to the horizon or other bright objects, such as the Moon, Jupiter or Saturn, but this time he took the plunge and let the students enter the RA and Dec of each object they'd found.

The first two came out nicely:

Cocoon Nebula Sky Object Name: cocoon
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:36:23 UTC
RA: 21h53'24"
DEC: 47°16'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01


Triangulum Galaxy (M33) Sky Object Name: triangulum galaxy
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:44:08 UTC
RA: 1h33'54"
DEC: 30°39'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Unfortunately, as luck would have it (and weather is one of those unpredictable things in life we often put down to luck!) it clouded over half way through the session, producing these two disappointing images:

M72 and M59
. . . .

Once control of the telescope came to an end, the group were able to look at the images, discuss the session and answer questions.

Thanks to St Richard's, Johny Ball and those who ran the workshops, the day was thoroughly enjoyed by all!

Congratulations Uplands Community College!

We have just heard today, Uplands has been granted Science Specialist College status from September...

Congratulations, everybody, on your hard work towards this!

Oh how the sky moves....

Browsing through some other astronomy blogs, I came across one called "Visual Universe", which has some good posts. In particular, there is a very beautiful time-lapse video of the Milky Way crossing the sky in Texas...it's well worth looking at!

7p1 Faulkes Telescope session 5th July

The session didn't start well. Students were still arriving and trying to find places, whilst an early student, hi-jacked to take control of the telescope, tried to get the link to work. For some unknown reason the telescope was closed. Rather than give up, the student tried the link to 'control' every few seconds with the hope the telescope would open. After about five minutes, which were spent describing what would have happened, and filling in details on an observation sheet (an older version of which is shown here):


As we were getting into the swing of 'what would have happened...' the student, still plugging away at the control button, became very excited, because the telescope was finally open! We swung into action and began putting in the co-ordinates of our first choice of star object, pressed the 'move telescope' button and ...nothing happened (apart from receiving a message saying the telescope was unable to slew (move)). We tried again, and again...nothing happend. Remembering that sometime the telescope got 'stuck' and had to be given different co-ordinates to 'unstick' it, we tried entering the co-ordinates for the next object on the list. Nothing happened! :-(

There was not a lot to be done. If it doesn't work it doesn't work. We were about to begin searching for the chosen objects in the archive, when the student at the control (luckily a persistent student!) announced the telescope was working. He had entered the co-ordinates of another object on the list, and the telescope had finally responded! Yay!

With only fifteen minutes of control time left to go, I didn't think we would get many of our images, since several of them were longer exposure times. However, we managed to get two very good images of M92,a globula cluster, and the excellent Cocoon Nebula, which we'd never imaged before:

M92, a globula cluster
Sky Object Name: m92
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:45:31 UTC
RA: 17h17'07"
DEC: 43°08'14"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 8 secs.
Instrument: EM01


IC5146 Cocoon Nebula
Sky Object Name: ic5146
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:54:50 UTC
RA: 21h53'30"
DEC: 47°16'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 100 secs.
Instrument: EM01

With only minutes to go, we tried to take a 3-colour picture of the Dumbell Nebula. The telescope control informed us there wasn't enough time. We reduced the time again and again, but still it wasn't possible. It suddenly occurred to me that the time was taken changing filters, so if we did a single filter it might allow this. We managed a 10s image using the red filter...which, though not spectacular, showed the nebula quite clearly!

M27 Dumbell Nebula
Sky Object Name: m27
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 13:58:44 UTC
RA: 19h59'36"
DEC: 22°43'01"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 10 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Frant Primary School - Faulkes 5th July 2010

Pupils at Frant Primary School had the opportunity to try out the Faulkes Telescope today. The sky was clear and the the viewing good. They took turns manouvering the telescope, and managed to get four good images:

M29, an open cluster in Cygnus Sky Object Name: m29
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 10:05:15 UTC
RA: 20h23'54"
DEC: 38°32'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 10 secs.
Instrument: EM01


M56, a globular cluster in Lyra Sky Object Name: m56
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 10:10:57 UTC
RA: 19h16'36"
DEC: 30°10'55"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01


M57 Ring Nebula Sky Object Name: m57
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 10:16:29 UTC
RA: 18h53'36"
DEC: 33°01'40"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 15 secs.
Instrument: EM01


M101 Pinwheel Galaxy Sky Object Name: m101
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 5, 2010 10:25:58 UTC
RA: 14h03'13"
DEC: 54°21'02"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 70 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Faulkes Heathfield July 1st 2010

Taken this morning at Heathfield Community College:

Messier 92 (also known as M92 or NGC 6341) is a globular cluster in the constellation Hercules.

Sky Object Name: M92
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 1, 2010 10:34:44 UTC
RA: 17h17'07"
DEC: 43°08'14"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM01

The Pinwheel Galaxy is a face-on spiral galaxy distanced 23 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. Sky Object Name: m101
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 1, 2010 10:40:31 UTC
RA: 14h03'13"
DEC: 54°21'02"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

The Trifid Nebula, located in Sagittarius, is so named because it is 'divided into three lobes'. The object is an unusual combination of an open cluster of stars, an emission nebula (the lower, red portion), a reflection nebula (the upper, blue portion) and a dark nebula (the apparent 'gaps' within the emission nebula that cause the trifid appearance. Sky Object Name: M20
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 1, 2010 10:46:46 UTC
RA: 18h02'20"
DEC: -23°03'10"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

NGC 5676 is an unbarred spiral galaxy in the constellation Boötes.
Sky Object Name: NGC5676
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 1, 2010 10:54:11 UTC
RA: 14h32'48"
DEC: 49°28'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

The Rosette Nebula is located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter. Sky Object Name: Rosette nebula
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 1, 2010 10:58:03 UTC
RA: 18h04'04"
DEC: -24°19'49"
Filter: Blue
Exposure time: 1 secs.
Instrument: EM01