On Saturday I visited the Norman Lockyer Observatory out near Sidmouth. I have known of this place ever since moving to Exeter but never made the effort to get there - until now. They have fortnightly open evenings and I joined the one called 'The Moon'.
A lovely sunset from the hill.
We started with a moon talk, including, during the Q&A session, a teenager posing the statement "I read on the web that the moon landings are fake...." Oh honestly. You can find anything you like on the internet nowadays. [As an aside, the chief geodesist at the Ordnance Survey still has to bat off questions about how he can prove that the earth is not flat.]
We then had a planetarium show. This is the smallest planetarium I've been to so the show wasn't as whizz, bang and pop as I've experienced before (most notably in Armagh and Cape Town). The projector was fine however I found that it seemed to illuminate all the stars equally and you couldn't make out the constellations easily despite the narrator waving his red laser pointer at them all in turn.
We then headed out to see Norman's 1881 Kensington telescope with its 9 and 10 inch tubes. This used to housed at the observatory in South Kensington, however Norman moved his outfit to Sidmouth in 1912 due to excessive light pollution at the London site. This telescope has to be wound up every 30 minutes or so.
After this we visited the Lockyer Technology Centre (LTC) which was fun for two reasons: (a) lots and lots of monitors with geeky realtime information on them and (b) it was warm! Standing peering through a telescope in an unheated dome is never going to be an occupation that will lure me.
The LTC is geared up for meteor detection and monitors space debris and asteroids. In fact, asteroid TC4 is heading our way later this week, 11/12 October, and passing within the moon's orbit. However it is unlikely to breach our atmosphere swinging past at a safe 50 000 km overhead.
We finished off back in another cold dome with the Lockyer telescope. This is a smaller older one, built in 1871 and a mere 6¼ inch lens. It was set focused on the moon which was very full and bright. A beautiful sight.
A lovely sunset from the hill.
We started with a moon talk, including, during the Q&A session, a teenager posing the statement "I read on the web that the moon landings are fake...." Oh honestly. You can find anything you like on the internet nowadays. [As an aside, the chief geodesist at the Ordnance Survey still has to bat off questions about how he can prove that the earth is not flat.]
We then had a planetarium show. This is the smallest planetarium I've been to so the show wasn't as whizz, bang and pop as I've experienced before (most notably in Armagh and Cape Town). The projector was fine however I found that it seemed to illuminate all the stars equally and you couldn't make out the constellations easily despite the narrator waving his red laser pointer at them all in turn.
We then headed out to see Norman's 1881 Kensington telescope with its 9 and 10 inch tubes. This used to housed at the observatory in South Kensington, however Norman moved his outfit to Sidmouth in 1912 due to excessive light pollution at the London site. This telescope has to be wound up every 30 minutes or so.
After this we visited the Lockyer Technology Centre (LTC) which was fun for two reasons: (a) lots and lots of monitors with geeky realtime information on them and (b) it was warm! Standing peering through a telescope in an unheated dome is never going to be an occupation that will lure me.
The LTC is geared up for meteor detection and monitors space debris and asteroids. In fact, asteroid TC4 is heading our way later this week, 11/12 October, and passing within the moon's orbit. However it is unlikely to breach our atmosphere swinging past at a safe 50 000 km overhead.
We finished off back in another cold dome with the Lockyer telescope. This is a smaller older one, built in 1871 and a mere 6¼ inch lens. It was set focused on the moon which was very full and bright. A beautiful sight.
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