Greetings from New Zealand!

As I mentioned in my first blog (ever!), I recently joined our local astronomy group known as the Levin StarGazers.  This is a group of amateur astronomers who get together once a month with their telescopes and share their knowledge. 

To kick off the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), the group recently held a "telescope amnesty", where they invited the public to bring along their telescopes that had been gathering dust because they didn't know how to use them.  What a resounding success it was, even though the weather didn't cooperate for any decent viewing afterwards.  Around 100 people came (in a town with a population of less than 20,000, that was pretty darn good) and listened to a guest astronomer explain the pros and cons of many of the different types of telescopes (refractors, newtonians, dobsonians, and so on).  Following that presentation, the children in the audience were challenged to take part in a quiz on astronomy, with prizes of course being chocolate treats (actually "Mars Bars" - a type of chewy chocolate bar here in NZ).

After the quiz, everyone went outside with their telescopes, old and new, and those who wanted advice were teamed up with amateur astronomers.  Even as a relative newbie, I was able to help a young boy who had the same equatorial mount as my own telescope.  It was great to be able to pass on even that little amount of knowledge. 

Unfortunately the weather was completely overcast and the moon at perigee and close to being full, and we all thought that we were not going to see anything - until...

The power of prayer...

One of the visiting astronomers is of Maori descent, and he recited a karakia (Maori prayer) to Marama (the moon) and Matariki (the Pleiades).  Honest to goodness, within 2 minutes the moon began peeking in and out of the clouds and a clear patch of sky appeared around Orion!  So some of the local kids managed to get some pretty neat views after all, despite the weather.

Just to top the evening off, the event made front page news in the local newspaper, and many more people joined our little StarGazers group, which is an absolutely fabulous start to IYA2009!

Well, it's been a while since my last post but things have been rather busy, especially in regards to planning our main "100 Hours of Astronomy" event here in Levin, New Zealand.  If you haven't heard me say it before, Levin is a small town of around 20,000 people but the local astronomy club (Levin StarGazers) has had excellent results in attracting locals to our public star parties.

World Famous!

One of the public star parties that was held on Guy Fawkes last year was particularly successful and really helped put sleepy old Levin on the map.  The photo below was taken at this event (by Paul Moss - see www.astronomy.net.nz) and was picked up by Sky and Telescope magazine for their recent article on IYA2009 and 100HA events.  The photo has now been published in both the US and Australian editions of that magazine!  You can read the article here.  It is also being used as one of the 6 images for the official 100 Hours of Astronomy posters!

Worlds Largest Star Party!

Following on from our successes, the Levin StarGazers plan to hold the worlds largest star party on April 4th as part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy events that are happening worldwide!  Everybody in our district is being invited to come down and view Saturn through a telescope.  In addition to the main "Saturn-viewing" telescopes, there will be other group members showing other wonders in our skies, plus an information desk and a guest speaker giving presentations indoors.  My company is donating a $500 telescope to give away as a prize to some lucky member of the public too!  If the weather doesn't permit viewing, we have an inflatable cosmodome/planetarium that will be set up indoors for brief presentations to the public.

It should be a fantastic (and exhausting!) night.  Here's hoping the public come along in their hundreds!  The local newspapers and radio station have been very supportive in promoting the event, and the prize draw for the telescope will be done on live radio on the Monday following the event.

Wish us luck, and I hope that you are all planning wonderful events for the public too!

Regards, Mike

World largest?...nah!

Well, April 4th has been and gone, and the public turnout for our 100HA event in little old Levin, New Zealand totally exceeded our expectations!  A world record it was not, but given our meagre population of around 20,000 a turnout of over 500 people was a dream come true for our small astronomy club.  Before the event our club had a membership of 65, but by the end of the night we had added another 100 members to our group!

Leading up to the event we did quite a bit of promotion - handing out flyers at shopping malls and main streets, radio advertisements (free community event bulletins), library displays, etc.  My company also donated a NZ$500 6" dobsonian telescope as a prize to try and attract as many punters as possible.  I was lucky(?) enough to be sat at the registration desk on the night and taking entries for the telescope draw and signing up new members, and I was absolutely swamped!  They just kept coming and coming all night (well, OK, until about 10pm anyway).

The weather, which had been quite uncooperative for the previous couple of weeks, could not have been better on the night - crystal clear skies and relatively warm, which I think contributed significantly to getting people out and about for us.  Unfortunately, being stuck at the registration desk, I didn't get to see through a telescope all night!  Ah well, such is life.  At least I know that collectively we brought a lot of joy and amazement to a large number of people, and that, after all, is what it was all about.

We had 2 main telescopes set up and gave everyone the opportunity to see Saturn through them and then register for the prize draw.  After that they were free to wander amongst the 10 or so other telescopes that were viewing other interesting objects.  Lots of oohs and ahhs could be heard all night.  There was also an amateur astronomer giving talks indoors and an information table where the public could ask questions and access information on astronomy.

Since then, I have immensely enjoyed reading about and seeing photos/videos of all the events around New Zealand and the rest of the world.  It has been an amazing experience, and I congratulate all of you who participated in this truly global event.  For those who are interested, I have attached a short video of our event below.  My apologies for the quality - the intro was shot using a handheld camera (a bit shaky!) and the remainder was shot from a static tripod (I didn't have any free time to move the camera around!).  Unfortunately, I also forgot to switch the camera over to "night" mode, so the footage is rather dark, but you can see how many people were there by the shadows moving against the background!  Hope you enjoy.

Cheers,

Mike