Astro Village
From What The Wiki?!
Contents |
The Astronomy Tent is now closed. Thanks to Cima and Hans for their support.
Who knows what will happen in four years. Whatever it will be, we'll be looking forward to it!
Intro
There is a fantastic dedicated area on the camp site, the "Astro Village", where people can set up astronomical telescopes, cpu's, camera's and whatever. There is a central "Astronomy Tent". Those who want to play an active role in running the Astro Village, please click the "discussion" tab and join the volunteers! If you have any questions etc. about anything astronomy, astrophysics, wet grass biology or related subjects, please contact us:
- visit us on field E2
- dect 7424 User:astro
- dect 2462 User:cima
- dect 2771 User:hansvi
- astro.village@xs4all.nl
- post at the forum thread
Looking at sunspots!Image by Cor Bosman, cor@xs4all.nl
Where
The location for the Astro Village and the Astronomy Tent has been set and is shown in this photo of the E2 section of the camp site, away from noise and lights and with a good view of the South:
The bar represents 100m in ten 10m segments. The black square (20x20m) is the reserved space where anyone can set up telescopes and the dark square (5mx5m) is the Astronomy Tent itself. The Astro Village can be set up around the square, while leaving a broad path (marked with blue orientation lights) for visitors to walk to the Astronomy Tent. There is no obligation to put your own telescope up inside the square of course; you can keep it with your tent if you like that better. We don't expect the E field to become crowded, so there'll be lots of space between tents.
Cabling
The Astronomy Tent will have limited power for running its computers and beamer, but more than enough for telescopes. Otherwise the E-field will not be provided with WTH power due to the distance, so it's best to bring laptops. . Connectivity for the tent is perfect.
Kids
Plan is to do an interactive lecture for kids each afternoon at 16.00h and one after dinner at 20.00h, each lasting one hour max. The Astronomy Tent has two computer microscopes at hand; kids will be able to bring stuff in to look at and take pictures of. There is also a microscope one can simply look through.
Visiting and Joining
Opening hours for visitors: 14.00h to 17.30h and 20.00h to 23.00h or later if the weather invites.
Up=Open
Down=Closed
Obviously, if you have a set of binoculars or any other kind of handy telescope, please bring it to Astro Village. Light amplifiers are always fun too.
Anyone visiting the Astro Village after dark, please do *not* use a white flashlight. There are blue orientation lights to guide you from the dirt road to the Astronomy Tent. If you want to take a flashlight anyway, make sure it can be tempered and can take a red filter. This will help those engaged in sky watching maintaining their night vision.
If you plan to use a computer during observations, make sure to bring transparant red plastic foil to cover the monitor with.
If you want to take part in the Astro Village, feel free to set up your tent on the E2 field and join the fun.
Pictures
The Sun
The one star that will be visible during daytime is of course the Sun. Here is the latest picture of the Sun, taken by the SOHO spacecraft. The Astro Village will have several devices to observe the Sun's surface. BTW, anyone fancy bringing a Coronado telescope?
We had a good view at the Sun's surface this afternoon, saw three groups of sun spots. --Astro 29 July 2005 19:41 (CEST)
The Other Stars
The following six charts show the sky over the camp site (and possible objects to look at) from 21h to 02h at July 29th. The other WTH dates show the sky a little bit rotated compared to these charts. Visibility of objects remains virtually the same at the specified times. The red dotted circle represents the Horizon. Everything outside the circle is below the horizon and thus invisible at the specified time. At the centre of each chart is the Zenith.
Sky July 29 21:00
Sky July 29 22:00
Sky July 29 23:00
Sky July 29 24:00
Sky July 30 01:00
Sky July 30 02:00
Legend
The Moon
The Moon is not going to play a big part this time, unless you want to stay up really late. Although the Moon is a spectacular view by itself, the advantage of its absence will be that fainter objects will be visible. The graphs below (taken from Starry Night Pro 5) show the time the Sun and Moon are above the horizon for the four nights of WTH. The yellow vertical lines mark the Moon rise. The charts show the phases of the Moon, just above the horizon.
July 29 sunset and moonrise
July 29 moon
July 30 sunset and moonrise
July 30 moon (with pleiades)
July 31 sunset and moonrise
July 31 moon
August 1 sunset and moonrise
August 1 moon
