| Event ID: | 8633 |
| Contact Name: | John Hislop |
| Contact Email: | monkton.stargazers@gmail.com |
| Contact Phone: | 01843 822666 |
| Organization: | The Monkton Stargazers |
| Event Web Site: | http://www.monkton-reserve.org/ |
| Dates: | 3rd October 2015 to 4th October 2015 |
| Physical Event: | |
| Type: | Public |
| Start/End Type: | |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| State/Province: | Kent |
| City: | Monkton, Thanet |
| Address: | |
| Location: | |
| Event Name: | Star Party |
| Event Description: | The party will commence at 2pm with some solar astronomy and amateur radio. We will have activities such as hunting for the hidden radio transmitter and sending messages using Morse code. In the evening we will download data from the fun cube satellite and use the 12 inch telescope to view some amazing sights such as the Andromeda Galaxy. |
| Promotional Image: | No Image. |
| Report on the Results: | The Monkton Stargazers celebrated World Space Week by having a special opening of the two observatories at Monkton Nature Reserve on Sunday 4th October. The 12 inch Newtonian reflecting telescope is a beautiful machine and gives excellent images of distant celestial objects. It has two motors to track those objects keeping them in constant view. Maisy and Toby Rogers showed their meerkats how the light passes down to the curved mirror to be reflected to another flat mirror and then on to the eyepiece. We can see distant galaxies and the remnants of exploding supernovae through this amazing telescope. Visitors love the way the whole dome moves round to different parts of the sky. Outside we had a refracting telescope with a solar filter. We could see the sunspot AR2427 at about 7 o’clock on the inverted Sun’s surface. Fortunately, according to the Space Weather website, this sunspot does not pose a threat for strong solar flares. ‘Peckham’ Ted and Iris Rathbone were pleased to see this effect as they had never seen sunspots before. Finn was able to see the Sun safely using solar glasses, while his brother Chris had to shield his eyes. Meanwhile their mother Julie looked through the telescope. Tim Long was busy putting the finishing touches to his telescope which will be remotely controlled. He hopes to have first light this week. It is a compact Schmidt-Cassegrain design which also uses mirrors. Also on show for the afternoon was a special event amateur radio station run by the Hilderstone radio club using the call sign GB2WSW, World Space Week. Using a battery and a portable delta loop antenna Andrew Plant and John Hislop were able to pick up stations all across the UK. |
| Attendance: | 20 |
| Attendance is Unique: | |
| Media Impressions: | 1000 |
| Media Impressions are Unique: |
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