Great Wood School, Morecambe

This week we went over to Morecambe by the seaside to do a couple of days' work in Great Wood school. This was a great experience for us, and a little different too. The school is running with the topic of space exploration and they asked us to come in and provide some inspiration for them for the whole module, meaning that they are going to do some science fiction writing, art and so forth, all inspired by astronomy. It was a different thing for us and we focused heavily on extra-terrestrials as well as the more numinous elements of astronomy, deep space astrophotography and suchlike. We had a great time and delivered another stargazing evening too, again with a twist as the students were encouraged to come dressed as aliens. Below is a slideshow and also a video with footage of the 'Parade of Aliens'. It was a brilliant evening with around 160 people in attendance, all families.



Click the slideshow to go to our Picasa gallery with high resolution images.



You can view this video in HD on our YouTube channel. Read More!

Astronomy Time Lapse Videos

It;s the Easter holiday so I've taken a break from posting about us so I can show you some incredible astronomy time lapse videos.

First up is Orion:

"Orion" - motion controlled night timelapse from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

Next, Aurora Borealis:

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Finally, the Mily Way:

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Extraordinary. That's the phenomenal thing about this science, the incredible beauty of what we observe. Read More!

Scorton & Calder Vale Rocket Building Competition

Not too far in the distant past we delivered our award winning service to schools in Scorton & Calder Vale. The project was a roaring success. The students, staff, parents and we all loved it. These are two rural schools situated somewhere within the Lancastrian triangle of Blackburn, Garstang and Lancaster. After we left they continued their study of astronomy and space travel by staging a rocket building competition, and we were invited back to judge it. It was an extraordinary event that saw whole families working with one another, coming together to do something truly fantastic, to build a working rocket with a propulsion system and launching site or device.

It is difficult to express in words how talented these students are, or how brilliant their work turned out to be, so I will simply let the YouTube video below do the talking.



Thanks for the memories kids. Read More!

Padiham Green Sends a Message to ET

This week saw the last session in yet another triumph, this time at Padiham Green school in Padiham, Lancashire. This was a really boisterous and bright set of students with some genuine talent and flair for the sciences. They passionately embraced Beauty In The Universe with enthusiasm and gusto, practically devouring everything I could throw at them. They assimilated some incredibly difficult concept too, including the expanding universe, red shift and the Doppler Effect.

This was an experience to remember for me as much as them, and I hope that we get another chance to work with them and their fine staff. Today they prepared and lunched a message to alien life, and, as ever, video footage is below:

Read More!