Herstmonceux Astronomy Festival 2009 (Plus Making AstroSoc Promo YouTube Video)

Welcome back!

My local astronomy society, based at Cranbrook School in Kent, decided for the first time to book a stand at a large public astronomy event (Herstmonceux Astronomy Festival 2009 – it’s just happened this weekend)

If your astro soc is thinking of doing something like this, then I strongly recommend it.

I spent all weekend on our stand at Herstmonceux. It was a great opportunity to meet the public and let them know about CADSAS and it’s forthcoming meetings. Good local promotion and awareness building.

But just as important was meeting other local astronomy societies, getting to know some of their key people and generally “joining the local astro club community”.

Also, it provided a great opportunity to make a couple of (very) short videos for YouTube.com (above and below)

All it needed was a simple camcorder and a tripod. You should do the same for your club or society.

Don’t get put-off by thoughts of fancy video equipment.

Surely, the quality is not like the BBC. But in spite of the wind and excessive background noise, IT WORKS to help show people what you are doing.

A quick video like this, gives you something you can show to others. And it helps people find your society through the search engines.

Highly recommended!

Free Download (enjoy): Latest Issue Of Practical Astronomy Magazine

SPA Greenwich Planetarium Event, Plus Trip To The Southern Hemisphere

Very much enjoyed my first visit last Saturday, to the new Peter Harrison planetarium at the old Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Top of 35 Ton Bronze Dome of Harrison Planetarium

It was for the special SPA Greenwich event.  

After setting off from Kent early, I reached Greenwich and parked on Crooms Hill with plenty of the time for the 9.45am (sharp – “latecomers will not be admitted”) start to the show.

The presentation was given by Tony Sizer – it was a very interesting and visually stunning, look at the Night Sky.

The highlight for me, was the “Trip to the Southern Hemisphere”.

The whole audience got to view the constellation of Crux, the nearest stars to our own  Sun – Proxima, Alpha and Beta Centauri – plus the Larger and Smaller Magellanic Clouds.  All without leaving our seats!

Good fun and informative.

Fabulous “Spring Moonwatch” Week!

Well, what fun this week…

It’s been designated  ”Spring Moonwatch” week, as part of the IYA 2009 and we have been blessed with wonderful clear skies here in South-East England. 

I have helped run two public events at my local astro society . I even gave a talk yesterday to about 30 people, about the Moonwatch week and what to see on the Moon.  And it used my own Moon images, taken over the last couple of weeks.

Two or three of the newcomers, became obviously enthused with the idea of Moon observing, which made it feel very worthwhile.

Newtonian 6 inch reflector on EQ6 mount, observing the 9-day Moon

Tonight, I snapped the 9 day old Moon.

To the right, is my old 6 inch reflector, which I bought on eBay in 2003.  

Originally, it was on a simple alt-azimuth mount, but I have recently added new tube rings and dovetail bar, enabling it to be put on the Skywatcher EQ6 mount. (Vastly more stable and of course, driven)

It has worked really well this week for capturing images of the Moon, as it has progressed from 3-day crescent through to 9-day Moon, tonight.

(I shall put together a montage of images from this week.)

Using my now trusty, Canon 1000D dslr, I have (as always) been very pleased with  the results.

Here is an image of the 9+ day Moon, I took tonight.

9+ Day Old Moon, 2009/04/04 (click for larger)

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