Just a brief post about our astronomy tour at Mt John Observatory last night. We went with Earth and Sky http://earthandskynz.com/earthandsky/
We kept an eye on the weather on the bus journey up from Te Anau, where the day had started cloudy, and kept looking skywards on through the afternoon. It cleared up and looked promising, so we duly turned up to Earth and Sky's office at 9:45pm - and we were on.
They took us up to the observatory by bus, just under 15 minutes. We had two guides. Jason gave a brief introduction to the observatory, and pointed us to the hot chocolate :-) He had a telescope set up, and started with Venus - which shows phases, like the moon. I didn't know that. He also introduced Maki, who offered to take photos of the moon with any Digital SLR cameras any of us had brought - using their tracking mount. Andy got four lunar photos that way. The other guide, Andrew, had a second telescope, pointing at a different object. The guides had us in two groups moving between their telescopes as they lined up different objects.
We then moved on to the 16" telescope. Among other wonderful views, we saw Tucanae 47. When first discovered, it was thought to be a single object. It's now known to be a globular cluster of about a million stars, aged between 10 and 12 billion years. Here's what Wikipedia says
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Tucanae
We were at the observatory for about an hour and three quarters, and it was a great experience. At the very end, Maki took a photo of the group in front of the 16" telescope, which you can see here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthandsky/10829388566/
I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone with even just a passing interest in the skies or the stars. Make sure you take plenty of layers and a hat and gloves. And still take advantage of the warm coat loan from Earth and Sky.
We kept an eye on the weather on the bus journey up from Te Anau, where the day had started cloudy, and kept looking skywards on through the afternoon. It cleared up and looked promising, so we duly turned up to Earth and Sky's office at 9:45pm - and we were on.
They took us up to the observatory by bus, just under 15 minutes. We had two guides. Jason gave a brief introduction to the observatory, and pointed us to the hot chocolate :-) He had a telescope set up, and started with Venus - which shows phases, like the moon. I didn't know that. He also introduced Maki, who offered to take photos of the moon with any Digital SLR cameras any of us had brought - using their tracking mount. Andy got four lunar photos that way. The other guide, Andrew, had a second telescope, pointing at a different object. The guides had us in two groups moving between their telescopes as they lined up different objects.
We then moved on to the 16" telescope. Among other wonderful views, we saw Tucanae 47. When first discovered, it was thought to be a single object. It's now known to be a globular cluster of about a million stars, aged between 10 and 12 billion years. Here's what Wikipedia says
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/47_Tucanae
We were at the observatory for about an hour and three quarters, and it was a great experience. At the very end, Maki took a photo of the group in front of the 16" telescope, which you can see here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthandsky/10829388566/
I'd absolutely recommend it to anyone with even just a passing interest in the skies or the stars. Make sure you take plenty of layers and a hat and gloves. And still take advantage of the warm coat loan from Earth and Sky.
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