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Astronomical Public Events of New Zealand - ISAN Pages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Guarding
Against Destruction of the night sky Sharing
Space Astronomy
ISAN EVENTS!!! April 12th 2008 - Read/Write event Reports HERE: Wellington. 1pm to 11pm Waterfront
Reports from New Zealand: all welcome After Ricky and Jamie have left the area, the sky become a bit clear and about 20 people admired the Jewel Box, the Alpha Centaury and the Saturn. Because the sky was much clear then before, I changed the 26 mm eyepiece with 9 mm and the public admired the Saturn’s ring and the Titan. Auckland - ISAN #2 Pukekohe Must have been the power of prayer because at around 6.15pm the skies cleared and we had a fantastic evening. I did not count exact numbers but we must have had around 70 people all told. Great to show Saturn to plenty of first timer star gazers who were as always amazed that it looked so real. The moon also put on a fine display. Our town centre position meant that we were not able to see many of the sounthern sky's deep sky objects but that did not seem to matter! Looking forward to next year - my wife suggested that i ask the coffee shop next to where we were observing to open up next year - what a fine idea. Hope to read other's accounts soon. notes: Hey Chris, cool to see you guys out too! did the 22in dobsonian have a Loftus mirror? we had Graeme Jonas (who made the mirrors for the 6in dobs we used) and his friend (another optics expert from Tucson) visit, they learned to make mirrors from Graham Loftus. John Dobson and Graeme Loftus visited us a few years back, great guys, I loved the time i spent with them, and their presentations, so inspiring, probably why I'm out doing sidewalk events. Hi Paul - yes the 22"was made by Graham and he was operating it on the night!! Great to see your account of your event also. /./././.\.\.\.\. Gisborne /./././.\.\.\.\. Dunedin /./././.\.\.\.\. Wellington event notes. ISAN 2008 held here in Wellington on the waterfront from 1pm to 11pm, beautiful sunny day, Roland showed the sun through binoculars with solar filter to dozens maybe hundreds of people. We had 7 telescopes and two binoculars; 3x 150mm dobsonians, We had massive FUN, esp with the children, showed the moon, mars, saturn, Titan, orion, omega centauri, the Jewel Box in the crux, Antares, and others.... to many hundreds of people, mostly first timers, WOW factor kicked in often! especially the younger women.. maybe the best astro event ive been to.. the most telescopes i ever saw in one place at one time.. Had many local astronomers also bring telescopes, visit, speak, assist with pointing telescopes, and generally celebrate the event. I'm still glowing from a special tour of the RAINBOW WARRIOR tonight, and Greenpeace people looking through our telescopes... so inspirational; both ways.. cheers guys, thanks. Pictures and video to come soon... more notes.. We were visited by many people with stories to tell; One guy said Ïve been looking at the sun all my life" when Roland asked him if he wanted to see the sun; It turned out he had used sextants for ship navigation for decades before gps.. he said that he was closest to his concept of god when he was on the dark bridge of a big ship in the middle of an ocean, looking up.. Another guy said he drove the crane that lifted the Boller and Chivens into the Ruth Crisp Observatory at Carter about 30 years ago.. Sarah (Director Carter Observatory) said she quite liked the concept of urban guerilla astronomy.. Dimiti (Dima) the photographer from greenpeace saw lots of astronomical objects for the first time through a telescope, and learned about maori astonomy and navigation from Anaru Reedy.. Billy Graham came by with his family and we wandered all over the Rainbow Warrior.. Ann and Ken Kopelson created a fabulous fun atmosphere, with questions and comments.. "One young lady said it was like standing at the top of the diving board.." as she was looking at Saturn through Vicki's dob. Andrew Ratich (Large Bino Telescope - Arizona) poked some fun at me, then told me he learned mirror making from my hero, Graham Loftus.. Graeme Jonas told me he made those mirrors in the WAS dobsonians, inspired by John Dobson. The 8,9,10 yr old boys had too much coca cola, they buzzed for hours, but we matched them!! Simon from Greenpeace saw Saturn and the Moon through a telescope for the first time... he wondered about all the new stars to him, he's just moved his family from the UK to Wellington. One 7 yr old told me that the sky was really dark in Fiji when she was there, when i sai dyes it was when i was there, she giggled and said she just made it up.. ha! tricked you... Anaru and I talked about Godwits.. why they travel to the Arctic via the Yellow sea and then directly back to Aotearoa, non-stop.. further than the moon in its 12 years of annual migration.. We also talked about the Albatross and the Mutton Bird, the little Mutton Bird travels 60,000km around the antarctic without a break... Greenpeace gave me the visitors badge with a whale on it; we spoke about the size of the whales eyes, their dark sky, and the possibility that they navigated by the stars... Vicki and I used our green laser pointers, great tools for sharing astro / space knowledge.. Ray Ching found and showed me Omega Centauri, the very same object that was pictured on my badge!! I could hardly believe it was possible in city light... Ron showed me the Jewel Box, stunning also despite the conditions. I showed Orions Belt and people were amazed to see that the 3 stars were really 3 pairs... I heard one young man tell his mum " that star over there is the heart of Scorpio" about half an hour after we pointed it out to him.. the power of story..
.. and a small note for astronomy event organisers, I've been researching event promotion for a long time. The new concept of social networking and event websites seems to be working well; I had 11,000 impressions, it seems that the site is syndicated all over the place, and my event is re-posted so much, that its got reasonable visibility. see www.eventfinder.co.nz user mozasaur
The images from here down this side were taken
A big ups to John Dobson for bringing that
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ISAN 2008 - Wellington Images from ISAN Wellington 2008:
We promoted IYA2009 as part of our activity
Bonnevue Pictures Interviewing at ISAN 2008 - From left: Ken Kopelson, (- Producer / Director / Writer), Paul Moss (Sharing Space - ISAN NZ Organiser), Roland Idaczyk (IYA2009 NZ Webmaster), Ann Kopelson ( Producer / Writer), and Anaru Reedy (maori Astronomy/Navigation, Te Wananga O Aotearoa).
Roland showed the quiet sun to hundreds of visitors
George drops by to say hi..
Graeme and Vicki
The book is called Astronomy Aotearoa
looking west we had the city building skyline, with a beautiful sails construction.
looking south-east we had mariners, Te Papa, and lots of boats and cranes!
Ray pitch's in, shows me Omega Centauri!!!
The Rainbow Warrior was a strong visual component of our location.
Our event was located in the paths of people moving along the waterfront
Paul shows the maori star compass to Ann
umm, whats up there??
Warwick talks to Roland ..
and Cat
Anaru talks to a visitor..
we did have a lot of fun...
One of those astronomers made the mirrors in those dobs... cool!! see KiwiStar Optics
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