These are more photos from the Herstmonceux trip (see earlier news). The photos show the amazing rising floor in Dome E, home of the 26-inch Thompson Refractor. Look at the door in the photos, you clearly see it is rising, you may also notice J.D.R posing for us next to the door, lovely!

Once the floor had risen fully we got a talk from one of the experts that worked there. She explained that the telescope was not touching the dome at all. It was free-standing, on top of a huge concrete pillar. This is so the telescope does not get nudged while taking a picture. She told us many interesting facts while we were there, but sadly it was over too fast and we were on out way down again. I think we can all say this was a out of this world experience. These awesome photos were taken by one of the astronomy reporters, thanks Asteroid Adam (Adam Farmer).





In other news
We all take astronomy seriously, we are dedicated, work hard and always.... eat sour sweets!! Well just the once. I think we all know who pulled the funniest face though. I shall be kind and name no names, SIR.

By Mr Meteor (Jack Morgan)

Lego Robot Club

Lego Robot Club

Years 7 to 13 (and older :-) )

Have you ever wanted to take Lego further than basic modelling?
Have you ever wanted to build a robot that moves, or even walks?
Perhaps you watched Robot wars, and thought you’d like to have
a go at something like that, but didn’t have the right equipment.

Design, build and program a robot with Mindstorms Lego.

Thursday lunchtimes L8

Constellation of the Month: The Plough

It was suggested by a reader of Astronomical Uplands that we might do a 'Constellation of the Month'.

I really like this idea since, when I first started astronomy, I only knew a handful of constellations, and when looking up at the night sky, though beautiful, it was simply a starry sky. Apart from my favourites, I didn't know any of the other constellations, where to find them, or anything interesting about the stars within them.

Before I begin...just a quick word about constellations.
Although we imagine the stars in the constellations to be
somehow related to each other, they are really what are
known as asterisms. The stars are unrelated to each other
except for us making pretty patterns out of them. Some
stars in a constellation can be many many light years
closer to us than other stars (see the picture at the end
for the stars in the Plough).

The only link to each other is in our imaginations!

So now, month by month, I hope to explore our sky together, starting with one of the most prominant constellations in the northern hemisphere - The Plough (also called the Big Dipper, the Great Bear, the Saucepan...)

The Plough is part of a much larger constellation, Ursa Major, which is the Latin for 'Great Bear'. Here is how it was imagined the stars for Ursa Major formed this large beast:




Taking away the bear's outline, we are left with the stars, and the imaginary connections we make between them...


Can you see the 'saucepan' shape? (clue...the lines joining it together are a little brighter! :-) )

This section (the bear's backside and tail) is brighter and clearer in the sky, and it is one of the easiest to find in the sky. This is the part of the whole constellation we call the Plough:


There are seven main stars of the Saucepan or the Plough. If you learn their names, everyone will think you're very star-smart! Here they are:


One of the great things about this constellation is that it can be found quite easily.

If you stand with your left arm facing where the sun set, you're pretty much facing north, which is roughly where you'll find the Plough. This constellation goes round the North Star (also called Polaris, which isn't as bright as you'd like it to be, but just happens to be pretty much over the North Pole)

Two of it's stars - Dubhe and Merak - have been used throughout history to point to Polaris, and therefore north, by tracing a line directly through them. Strangely enough, they are called 'the Pointers' :-)


The Alaskan flag shows how important this constellation is to the people of Alaska:


And here's the star map to show how Dubhe and Merak point to the North Star (if you look closely, you might see that the North Star - Polaris - is the end of another saucepan shaped constellation. This is Ursa Minor (or the Little Bear), which we'll maybe look at next time)...



Another interesting star of the Plough is the second star of the handle, named Mizar in the above images:


Though to the untrained eye this is one star, it is actually a pair of unrelated stars close together in the sky (an optical double).

The brightest of the two is called Mizar, and the slightly 'smaller', or less bright, is called Alcor. Being able to see the seperation of the two stars is sometimes used as a test for good eyesight, since you can just see both stars if you look really carefully with the naked eye. Another name for this pair is the 'Horse and the Rider'.

What might not be so obvious, though, is that Mizar is actually a proper binary star - two stars that are gravitationaly bound to each other (in the same way the Moon is bound to Earth)- Mizar A and Mizar B (this next picture shows the ringed area in the image above):

What is often seen as one star, Mizar, is actually
three seperate stars: Alcor, Mizar A and Mizar B!

Further interest in this constellation (from Wikipedia)

• Several bright galaxies are found in Ursa Major, including the pair Messier 81 (one of the brightest galaxies in the sky) and Messier 82 above the bear's head, and Pinwheel Galaxy (M101), a beautiful spiral northwest of η Ursae Majoris.






• The other notable spiral galaxies Messier 108 and Messier 109 may also be found in this other constellation.






• Altogether, the constellation contains about 50 galaxies observable through an amateur telescope.






• The bright planetary nebula Owl Nebula (M97), named for its appearance, can be found along the bottom of the bowl of the Big Dipper.






• Of note as a curiosity more than an interesting deep sky object is Messier 40, a double star that Messier nonetheless included in his catalogue

So you can see where all these objects are, here's the picture I showed earlier, with the position of some of the deep space objects in Ursa Major (click on the picture to see it clearer):



And, just in case you're interested in how far away each of those seven main stars are (click on the picture to see it clearer) :


(Remember, a light year (ly) is a distance! It is how far light can travel in one year. So, these stars are a long, long way away, even the closest of them...)

'Constellation of the Month' now moved to new website:

88 Constellations

Herstmonceux Trip 9/11/2010

On Tuesday 9th November the GCSE Astronomy class visited the Observatory Science Centre at Herstmonceux. This famous site was set up in the 1950s when too much light pollution in London forced the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to relocate. It is a picturesque site set in lovely country side.



It has 6 domes housing the following:
Dome A - The 30-inch Thompson Reflector
Dome B - The 36-inch Yapp Reflector
Dome C - The Hewitt Camera
Dome D - The 13-inch Astrographic Refractor
Dome E - The 26-inch Thompson Refractor
Dome F - The Congo Scmidt and The Domes of Discovery Exhibition

We travelled to Herstmonceux in an Uplands mini bus arriving at 6pm in dark, windy and rainy weather. This meant starting off inside on the excellent hands on exhibits, followed by a baked potato supper. It looked like it might clear, but it was still raining so we then went into dome E.
This dome is really big – so that the huge telescope in there can be moved around to point to any part of the sky. In order to reach the eye piece the floor of the building moves up. It was like being in a James Bond movie!
We then had pockets of clear sky between the cloud, so we moved to dome D where the 13 inch telescope was lined up on Jupiter and its 4 largest moons. A really great sight: the moons in a row around Jupiter, and bands of colour easily seen on Jupiter itself.
We then looked inside dome A to see a large reflecting telescope with its complicated set of mirrors so that the light can be used for spectroscopy in a separate dark room.
The rest of the evening alternated between outside observing (our host pointing things out with his 50mW green laser) and back inside on the exhibits to warm up.

A really great evening for which a special thanks goes to the great Herstmonceux staff. Uplands students were a credit to the school, being enthusiastic, polite and good natured.

Not too sure about the singing on the way home though...

Mr Pert

UK Space Design Competition

For all those who want to enter the UK Space Design Competition (Some I've spoken to already) it has been suggested we meet at Tuesday (9th November) lunchtime in L8.

We only have until Friday to enter our registration video, which is as follows:



Try and come up with as many ideas as possible for this, since we need to make the powerpoint presentation ASAP to give us time to practice presenting it!!
See you there!

Ophiuchus

Dona Nobis Pacem

Today is Blogblast for Peace day, where Bloggers from around the world, of all shapes and sizes...writers, photographers or artists, mums, dads, business people...anyone with a blog, in fact, unite in their call for Peace. Each creates a peace post that means something to them, whether in poetry, prose, photos, pictures, knitted globes.... Each flies their own Peaceglobe (ours is at the top of this post), signed in their own way.

Dona Nobis Pacem, the title of this post, means 'Grant Us Peace'.

It would be good if all of us took just a little time today to reflect on what peace means to us.

11b1 Ingenious use of technology!

Period 4 today Year 11 used FTS and got some images.

We knew about the possiblility of seeing Hartley's comet, but didn’t know if it was observable from Australia at this time.

We had RA and dec so tried it – but no luck. We then went for the easy option of the guided tour – only to find it didn’t work! I then frantically tried various Messier objects until one was observable and we went for that – M42 Orion’s nebula.

A quick thinking student in the group, Kleber Noel, used his ipod planisphere to see what other Messier objects were around Orion, and found M30 and M79, two Globular Clusters.

(Kleber gets a badge for quick thinking and saving the lesson!)

- Mr Pert

Orion Nebula M42 Sky Object Name: M42
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 12:43:11 UTC
RA: 5h35'16"
DEC: -5°23'23"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 10 secs.
Instrument: EM03

Orion Nebula M42 Sky Object Name: M42
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 12:45:52 UTC
RA: 5h35'16"
DEC: -5°23'23"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03

Globular Cluster M30 Sky Object Name: M30
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 12:51:38 UTC
RA: 21h40'22"
DEC: -23°10'45"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 2 secs.
Instrument: EM03

Globular Cluster M79 Sky Object Name: M79
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 12:56:31 UTC
RA: 5h24'12"
DEC: -24°31'31"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 2 secs.
Instrument: EM03

Globular Cluster M79 Sky Object Name: M79
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 12:58:02 UTC
RA: 5h24'12"
DEC: -24°31'31"
Filter: Blue
Exposure time: 1 secs.
Instrument: EM03

Astronomy club catches Hartley's Comet

The Astronomy Club had some fun thanks to Anne booking FTN four 4pm GMT – when comet 103P was available. Got some fine pictures of this. We did a colour one (which you know about), also did a few fed only ones without moving the telescope. With these we hope to see the motion of the Comet against the background stars? Also got M42 and M43.

It is their Herstmonceux trip next week...

-Mr Pert

Sky Object Name: UNKNOWN
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:04:22 UTC
RA: 0h00'00"
DEC: 0°00'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:08:17 UTC
RA: 7h00'48"
DEC: 9°51'44"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: M42
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:13:40 UTC
RA: 5h35'16"
DEC: -5°23'23"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 4 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: M43
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:17:04 UTC
RA: 5h35'31"
DEC: -5°16'03"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: M35
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:21:17 UTC
RA: 6h09'05"
DEC: 24°20'19"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:23:58 UTC
RA: 7h00'51"
DEC: 9°50'23"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:25:06 UTC
RA: 7h00'51"
DEC: 9°50'23"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:26:14 UTC
RA: 7h00'51"
DEC: 9°50'23"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:27:12 UTC
RA: 7h00'51"
DEC: 9°50'23"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 2 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:28:19 UTC
RA: 7h00'51"
DEC: 9°50'23"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 1 secs.
Instrument: EM03
Sky Object Name: 103p
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Nov 2, 2010 16:03:35 UTC
RA: 7h00'48"
DEC: 9°51'52"
Filter: R
Exposure time: 3 secs.
Instrument: EM03