As apart of our senior physics coarse we have studied two topics relating to space and the universe and galaxies around us. These two topics were “space” and “astrophysics”. Space is kind of the introduction topic, and then astrophysics is an elective which can be taken up. Astrophysics (well, astrophotography in particular) is a really strong interest of mine and last night (Tuesday, 21st September) I had the pleasure of attending an excursion with my classmates (our last excursion forever! :-o) to an observatory in Wentworth Falls (the Blue Mountains). They have an impressive setup for a small observatory and they have an amazing sky, so dark and so full of stars. We chose a really good night to go too. We arrived (after departing school at 4:30pm) at the observatory at around about 8pm (thanks to the peak hour traffic). The company on the bus was good too (Thanks Fry and all of the others! :p, although now she probably regrets sitting next to me ;)) and everyone had a great (unforgetable) time too.
We were split up in to two groups, each group being the two different classes. We first went to watch and learn about the night sky using a framous astronomy program called Starry Nights. I have the same program at home and contsantly track various stars, constallations and planets using it. Okay, back to the topic. After learning about the sky we swapped over with the other group and went to the small observatory. The scope was excellent in terms of resolution and sensitibity and our “hosts” knew exactly what they were looking for and where to find it. We looked at the moon, Alpha Centauri, and one of the more famous globular clusters (who’s name I forget right now). We decided to go back to the moon in the end as we had some time left over.
Want to see something cool? Below are four images (and one on the right) taken with my 5megapixel camera put up to the end of the scope. They returned some amazing pictures (we took four in total) and the guide/instructor made comment that my camera was setup perfectly for astrophotography in terms of exposure, f-stops, and other settings.
Check them out, they’re awesome! (Warning, they’re about 1.4mb in size and of a large resolution)
- First Photo (A bit over exposed)
- Second Photo (Not very well focused)
- Third Photo (Okay)
- Fourth Photo (The best one, the one on the right)
It was a great time, and these were some amazing shots. I do hope to get in to astrophotography a bit more now, as I have been motivated after seeing these images. I have the equipment, I just don’t have the time or enough experience right now..
Comments
Matt Light (September 22nd, 2004, 4:41 pm)
Chris,
Great pictures! I’ve always liked looking at pictures and drawings of “outer space” but have never taken an astronomy class (you know how lazy I am :P).
Sorry I missed you on MSN just a few minutes ago
You must be ditching MyBB, me, and my constant complaining for UFOs or something. 
Of course, that’s if you believe in UFOs…
Here I go again… off a subject that barely has anything to do with the original topic. Do you believe in UFOs? I do… if the government doesn’t know that the object flying through the air is a balloon doesn’t that mean it is a UFO? Yep… it’s definitely an unidentified flying object
At any rate, great work as always!
Chris Boulton (September 22nd, 2004, 9:19 pm)
I do great work?
I’m ditching you, and MyBB and everything else at the moment so I can party hard for my last few days of school forever
I will be back though. Not much time for being online, and to be honest I am really enjoying being out in the sun all day just laying around. Its doing wonders for my tan.
Never fear, I will return
I’m slowly in the process of writing a report, and including a lot of photos about my last few days of school forever. PHHS class of ‘04
~ Chris
Matt Light (September 23rd, 2004, 2:39 am)
Woot! Class of ‘04! Except… I was out of school 3 or 4 months ago
Of course I have gone back to school since then and you won’t have to after you are done with testing :O No fair… but life isn’t fair… oh well, life goes on.
As for the sun, I love the sun but I hate when it’s sunny. Without the sun we’d all die but I can’t stand the heat or the UV rays
Sun burns and sweat… I don’t like either of them, hehe. I’m all for the rain… “Meteorologists are biased… who’s to say that sunny weather makes a great day? Then again… All newscasters are biased: If a newscaster isn’t biased in the news they report or the way they report it then they are biased towards the profession of newscasting.” ~Me!
ELY_M (October 3rd, 2004, 8:13 am)
nice pictures
I know Chris always be back for myBB