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A Night at the Observatory

By 10 March 2017June 2nd, 2021No Comments

Following weeks of frustration with the weather, we finally got some clear skies last night – Wednesday 8 March. Astronomy club pupils had already prepared the telescope, during lunchtime, in anticipation of unhindered clear sky viewing that night.

As we all know, Astley Bridge has its own micro-climate and I was still unsure if we were going to be lucky with the weather. However, for once the forecast was spot on, clear skies from 6 pm and I opened the observatory for some exciting viewing, the target was the moon, which was at 80% full.

Our state of the art camera and telescope were put to good use with lots of images taken of the moon and some deeper space objects as well. The images have to be processed using advanced software packages such as Adobe Photoshop and this can be time consuming. However, included in the article are a couple of images at an early stage of processing that we can enjoy. Just as we were getting ready to point the telescope further deep into space, the clouds appeared and we had to call it a night. We were satisfied with our venture.

Weather permitting, we are hoping to organise a star party next week so keep looking on our school website for further information.