Stargazing

Earlier this week staff and students had a very good evening's viewing, with many having a look through the eyepiece mainly at Jupiter or the moon, in what can only be described as bitterly cold conditions.

The College's main telescope is a Celestron CPC 1100 GPS. The 1100 means that it has a 11" diameter - telescopes are all about collecting photons so the bigger the aperture the better. It is also a computerized telescope with gps and can be controlled with some free software called stellarium from www.stellarium.org. This means that you can look at an object on a laptop and then slew the telescope automatically to it.

I would like to thank Joe Cox for his help with the set up of the software and its connection to the hardware.

Activity this month - Leonids - and Saturn comes round again
Jupiter now sets around 0200 at the beginning of the month and by 0100 at the end. This is compensated by Saturn which is rising now at 0430 at the beginning of November and by the end will be rising before 0300. Rising progressively earlier through the winter it will be a good target for beginners and their telescopes.

Leonid meteor shower occurs this month around the 17th/18th. Unfortunately it will be affected by moonlight until the early morning hours (after 0400) but early-risers could get rates of 20/hour at that time in a dark sky.

Simon Davis
Physics Teacher

November