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"Where are we?"
"Observatory, West Melton, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand, South Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, the Earth, the Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, unknown galaxies...endless Universe - to be explored!" |
As part of 100 Hours of Astronomy is an International Year of Astronomy (IYA) Project, Canterbury Astronomical Society hold open day and evening to public in West Melton Observatory on 2 - 4 April 2009.
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West Melton Observatory, established in 1963, is located in rural Canterbuty, 20-minute drive from Christchurch city.
It is an ideal place to see what a dark sky looks like in the Southern Hemisphere from April to October. |
You can have a look through professional quality telescopes (5", 12", 14" and 16"), each manned by a member of the society, who will operate the telescope and explain what you are seeing through it.
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The slideshow presented by the members of Canterbury Astronomical Society gave you the brief introduction of galaxies, planets, stars, Milky Way, etc.
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How BIG is Space? or How TINY and YOUNG is human being?
The light we are seeing now gets here... ...from the Moon in about 1.2 seconds ...from the Sun in 8.3 minutes ...from the furthest planets in our solar system in about 5 hours ...from the nearest star in 4 years ...from the other side of our galaxy in 100,000 years ...from the furthest known galaxies in 13,000,000,000 years. |
The nearest star to us other than the Sun is the Alpha Centauri system - a triple star system, of which two are easily visible in a small telescope.
Hot stars are blue-white - surface temperature 15,000 - 20,000 degrees. Red stars are cooler - only about 3,000 - 4,000 degrees. The Sun is about 6,000 degrees. |
The sunlight takes only 8.3 minutes to reach us.
The distance between the Earth and the Sun is 93,000,000 miles. The earth's orbit around the sun is nearly circular, but not perfectly so. The Earth is actually closest to the Sun in the northern hemisphere winter. |
Solar Observing - take a close look at the sun through a solar telescope in daylight. The sun is BLANK, no color at all.
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Milky Way, a band of light across the sky, a frisbee-shaped spiral galaxy in which we live, containing 100 billion stars but many are too faint to see unless you use a telescope.
A galaxy is made of stars and gas. |
The 14" scope brings you the 400 times zoom-in view of the Moon, Jupiter and stars.
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Through the 14" scope, the first quarter of Moon looks like a snow mountains (in fact they are rocky mountains with light reflection) wiht some craters / holes.
The moonlight is so bright that it brightens the sky and makes many of the fainter objects very difficult to see. So better to observe the evening sky on moonless nights around either New Moon or Last Quarter. |
The automated Meade RCX400 telescope of 16" (41cm) aperture with a CCD camera and Canon digital SLR camera is perfect for astrophotography.
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Through the 16" scope, Double Star was viewed - two stars appear close to each other in the sky, either linked by gravity so that they orbit each other (binary star) or lying at different distances from Earth (optical double).
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Under Canterbury sky in April, Sirius (the brightest star, known as 'Dog Star'), Procyon, Gemini, the Southern Cross and Milky Way are easily seen with the naked eye.
The problem is how to identify them among trillions of objects in the sky. |
For a better view of the night sky, the dome roof is rolled off. You'd better observe from a dark location, avoiding street lights and light pollution. The light bulb with red cellophane preserves your dark vision. You'll see more stars after your eyes adapt to the darkness - usually about 10 to 20 minutes after you go outside.
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The best time to view Canterbury evening sky is from April to October, mid-autumn to mid-spring. Keep warm under winter stars!
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Apart from sky observation in West Melton, you may sample extra virgin olive oil produced in the local olive gardens.
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taste Canterbury wine in a small vineyard and restaurant
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walk along Waimakariri River
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feast your eyes on Canterbury colourful autumn view
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How lucky we are to live in a peaceful, beautiful corner of the Earth for a while in terms of the boundless space and infinite time of universe.
The universe is so vast it is not comprehensible by the human mind.The universe humbles us as it should. |
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看了太空,才会觉得自己多么渺小.好好生活,才不枉来这世上走一遭.
霞 · 2009-04-09: 09:12
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