FREE TELESCOPE VIEWING
| If you have not seen the moon "live" close up, the images will amaze you! Craters, mountain ranges, mares and rilles become clearly visible.These features are particularly stunning around the 1st quarter phase of the moon. This is when the moon has travelled a quarter of the way on its path around the earth, about 7 days after the last "new" moon. The last quarter moon is also excellent for viewing, but unfortunately the moon rises around midnight on the last quarter,as opposed to about mid day for the 1st quarter.. From our viewpoint in Australia the moon also appears reversed from its look in the northern hemisphere. The "North Pole" appears to us in the south and the "South Pole" is in the north. Moon maps were drawn up, as were the constellations from a northern hemisphere aspect so down here we need to refer to southern hemisphere sky maps. Your view of all celestial objects depends on the latitude of the observer. The "Full" Moon may look impressive but because of the way the sun's rays strike the lunar surface, features are completely over illuminated and washed out. These conditions also preclude serious viewing of distant, very feint objects. The full moon is a giant light bulb in the sky all night long. |
| Every month around the 1st quarter moon we set up our telescope for everyone to come and view the moon and any other interesting objects that may be visible. The favourable climate on the far north coast makes this possible almost all year round except of course if there is cloud cover.Saturn and Jupiter, when visible are also good viewing objects, Saturn for it's rings and Jupiter for it's four moons.. We also point out the major constellations like Orion the Southern Cross and Scorpius.We also use astro computer programmes and moon maps to identify all the interesting features on our closest neighbour. If cloud does interfere we even have recordings of previous viewings and some interesting Astro-movies. If there is an interesting event in the sky, we will be there..Check our events page for dates and places for our FREE telescope viewing |
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Marie and Philip at Byron Bay
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June 16th 2005 . The Moon and Jupiter
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| We use an 8" compact reflecting telescope which gives excellent results for lunar and planetary observing and is easy to transport. A motor tracks the object to counter-rotate the movement of the earth.To complement the experience, we also use a high resolution CCD Camera to replace the eyepiece. With this camera attached to a 15" LCD monitor, we can show the moon's features for several people at once avoiding the need to look through the eyepiece. The 1st quarter moon is almost vertical at 6.30pm. CCD images also appear highly magnified . |
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5 day moon .Picture taken with a digital stills
camera and our telescope. Click to enlarge
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Saturn
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Eudoxus
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DOWN BY THE RIVER
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A YOUNG ASTRONOMER
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