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Observation reports - William Hulme Grammar School ...
Reading about other people's experiences at the eyepiece of a telescope
often inspires us to view the glory of the night sky. Go forth and explore
...!
Remember, don't forget to send your observing reports to observations@maccastro.com.
07/01/07 - Lunar
cratering with a difference
Modeling Impact Craters in the School Laboratory
I was amazed to hear from Allan Chapman that Robert Hooke was doing experiments
on impact and volcanic cratering in the 17th century. It took until 1969
to decide that the lunar craters were undoubtedly of impact origin, thanks
to the work of the late Dr. Eugene Shoemaker of NASA. Since then many
cratering experiments have been done in vacuum chambers using high velocity
projectiles and high-speed cameras to record ejecta patterns and thereby
devise theories of how craters are actually formed on the Moon, Mars and
the frozen satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. These are fascinating to
watch but cost thousands of dollars a shot.
A much cheaper, practical way to demonstrate cratering processes in the
school laboratory involves a tray of sand and some steel ball-bearings
of different sizes. It is surprising how much fun can be had by allowing
pupils to throw the ball bearings into the sand and by studying the results.
I have photographed some of our results - if you change the angle of illumination
using an anglepoise lamp, as Hooke did with a candle, and also remove
the colour in Photo shop, you can create 'lunar' landscapes which compare
favourably with black and white images of the real lunar surface. Pupils
can also obtain their own real images of the Moon using the Liverpool
Telescope on La Palma which is now free to schools via the National Schools
Observatory website: www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk
This is now being taught as part of the 21st Century Science GCSE offered
by OCR and the pupils are finding it both enjoyable and inspiring. It
is always rewarding to see Astronomy being used to turn young people on
to science.
A full version of this article is in production and will appear in What's
Up in due course.
John Thomson
Click on an image to see larger version.
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 July and August updates ...
The bright twilight nights are slowly giving way to darker skies and the prospect of revealing a little-known nightly sight. Away from the towns and cities, the Milky Way will soon be glimpsed meandering through the constellation of Cygnus. This river of stars was worshipped by the ancient Egyptians ... Nowadays, especially when we approach the end of Summer, it's astronomers that turn their gaze skyward and praise the sight of a myriad of stars arching high above them.
The following sections have been updated: This month's night sky and observations.
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Would you like to join our newly formed visual observing group? We will now be holding regular observing sessions at some of our dark-sky sites across Macclesfield. If you would llike to be added to our contact list, don't delay ... Click
here. |
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For information on our observing
field trips to Hardraw, Yorkshire ... Click
here. |
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Our Workshops continue to be a
great success. As a result we are looking for more of you
to participate and give your own short presentations to Society
members. Let us know if you'd like to get involved ... Click
here. |
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