Here are two videos I made of our tours of the facilities near Canberra on 16th June 2012.
First we toured the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex.
Then in the afternoon we toured the remains of Mt. Stromlo Observatory.
Peter Nosworthy
Observing Sat. 23rd June is ON
23 06 2012Cloud predictions are mostly for some clear skies tonight, and I haven’t seen a cloud all day.
Therefore observing tonight (Saturday 23rd June 2012) is ON!
The location is North Turramurra Golf Club. There is a map here:
http://nsas.org.au/contact/north-turramurra-golf-club/
I will aim to be there around 6pm. Don’t forget your winter woolies and a silly hat!
Gary
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Categories : Observing
Observing Friday 22 June is OFF
22 06 2012Observing tonight 22 June 2012 is OFF due to cloud cover and high winds.
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June General Meeting Tuesday the 19th
18 06 2012The June General Meeting will be at Regis Hall, St. Ignatius College tomorrow night, Tuesday the 19th of June, commencing at 7:30 PM. Our speaker will be Tom Field, from RSpec-Astro in Seattle by webmeeting, who will talk about amateur spectroscopy. His abstract follows:
Title: “You Can Almost Touch the Stars!”
Even if you wanted to touch a star, they’re impossibly distant. But despite these great distances, researchers have learned a great deal about quite a few stars. How? The most common method used to study the stars is called spectroscopy, which is the art and science of analyzing the colorful rainbow spectrum produced by a prism-like device.
Until recently, spectroscopy was too expensive and too complicated for all but a handful of amateurs. Today, though, new tools make spectroscopy accessible to almost all of us. You no longer need a PhD, dark skies, long exposures, or enormous aperture! With your current telescope and FITS camera (or a simple web cam or even a DSLR without a telescope) you can now easily study the stars yourself. Wouldn’t you like to detect the atmosphere on Neptune or the red shift of a quasar right from your own backyard?!
This talk, with lots of interesting examples, will show you what it’s all about, help you understand how spectroscopy is used in research. And, it will show you how to get started.
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Categories : General Meeting, Meetings, Speakers
Observing Report: Transit of Venus
7 06 2012Today, members of the society and a number of visitors met at St Ignatius to view the transit of venus across the sun – the last time this will be visible from Earth until 2117. Theoretically we were ideally placed here in Sydney to view the transit, with it occurring between about 8:15am to 2:45pm, therefore the entire transit should have been visible to us. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans, and we spent most of our time waiting for clouds to clear, and covering up the scopes when the rain came through. In the photo below, Tim demonstrates his disappointment with the weather during one of the rainy spells.
That said, we were still lucky enough to get enough breaks in the cloud to enable us to get some viewing in. We had seven scopes in all – five with solar filters, one Coronado Solar Scope (Tim’s), and a projection box (set up by Jean Luc).
Another means of viewing the transit was using solar glasses, as modelled by Irene below:
Below are three pictures I took of the transit (just by holding my point-and-click camera up to the eyepiece of different telescopes) – one through a telescope with a solar filter, one through Tim’s Coronado (click on it to view the high resolution image – note the solar flares!), and one of the projected view of the sun.
Of course, we had a number of groups of students come by throughout the day to take a look at the transit in progress.
Unfortunately, the rain settled in towards the end of the transit, with this being our last quick view:
Although the weather could have been nicer to us, it could also have been much worse, and I think it’s fair to say that we all still had a great time.
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Categories : Observing
NSAS Events for June
5 06 2012NSAS has a busy schedule in June. We start with the Transit of Venus tomorrow, where we will have special observing from St Ignatius College from 8 AM, and there will be approximately 7 solar scopes located next to the old meeting venue, the Fr Mac (Sports) Pavillion. Keep an eye on the weather, but if there’s any chance of seeing the sun, we will set up. On Tuesday the 12th we have the Theory Group at Regis Hall from 7:45 PM. The weekend of 16-17 we will have a Canberra field trip, touring the NASA centre at Tidbinbilla, Mt Stromlo, and hopefully joint observing with the Canberra Astronomical Society. The General Meeting will be on Tuesday the 19th at Regis Hall from 7:30 PM, and we have as speaker Tom Field from Rspec-Astro in the U.S. Observing this month will be the Fridays of 15th and 22nd, probably at NTGC, but watch for any venue changes. As usual, visitors are welcome to all events, with the exception of the field trip.
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Categories : Events, General Meeting, Meetings, Observing, Speakers, Theory Group
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