Scenic Rim Star Party
The public enjoying views of the sky, with the Sagittarius milky way (center of our galaxy) rising in the distance
One of the reason’s I developed a life-long interest in astronomy was from a public viewing night held by the local astronomy club. Outreach events like these events help foster not just interest in astronomy and space but also STEM in general. Therefore, I was thrilled to attend and talk at the Scenic Rim Star Party on June 16, held by the Scenic Rim Astronomical Association (SRAA). Being located at an ex-school near Laravale, 60km from the center of Brisbane City, the nighttime skies are often quite dark there. Brisbane in case you don't know is Australia's third largest city (population two million) and on the countries eastern seaboard in the state of Queensland.
Mt Lindsay (left) and Mt Barney (right) are remnants of an enormous ancient volcano complex now called the Scenic Rim, to which the club gives its name
Impressively, for a location so far out of Brisbane City, there were over 400 people in attendance and more might have arrived had the venue been able to cater for more. At least a dozen telescopes were on hand to provide fantastic views of the skies. During the daytime and into the early evening, the Queensland Rocketry Society (QRS) performed several model rocket launches which were a real hit for the attendees. There were also photography courses held in the afternoon and evening for budding astrophotographers.
From Top, left to right. Observing field with people starting to arrive, solar viewing in the afternoon and Jonathan Bradshaw's 20-inch Dobsonian telescope
The Queensland Rocketry Society demonstrated rocket launches on the hour. It turns out model rocketry is very popular in Queensland with regular events organized for both the private and public. The club can help with permits and licenses which enable amateurs to launch quite large model rockets. At the event, “A” and “B” impulse rockets were launched, which have impulse ratings of 0.2 and 0.4 kg-s, respectively. An impulse of 0.4 kg-s may not seem much, but this is more than adequate for sending a lightweight rocket high into the sky. As a matter of interest, rocket motors are classed based on impulse measured in Newton-Seconds as per the following link. One crucial tip was it is entirely illegal (in Australia at least) to build your rocket motors, even sugar motors (the ones published on youtube). There is a link to the Australian Rocketry here.
Just for fun, I tried an image sequence of a model rocket launch taken at ten frames per second. You can see the acceleration from one frame to the next. As an exercise maybe somebody can calculate the velocity profile and acceleration (assuming the table is about 0.8m high for scale, and the spacing between the images is 0.1 seconds).
Can you calculate velocity and acceleration? See text for details
Talking of rockets, James Gilmore did a presentation showing the progress in his company’s hybrid rocket technology. These rockets can be throttled down, but unlike conventional liquid fuel, hybrid rockets don’t have complicated plumbing and cryogenic handling requirements. You can see a demonstration of one of their hybrid rocket motors here. Gilmore also brought along their Mercury capsule replica as part of the display.
As the sun set, there was a pretty pairing between the moon and Venus. Sadly, I didn’t check focus so my images are not as good as they could be. The first of the talks began with Jonathan Bradshaw talking about doing (real and publishable) science with a small telescope. As Jonathan and others noted, perhaps his 20” telescope was not classed as small! The kids present in the audience enjoyed his video showing a star winking out as an asteroid passed in front of it. Jonathan does asteroid timings which enable us to accurately measure the size and shape of asteroids (they are too small to be resolved directly, even with the largest telescopes).
As the sun set, there was a beautiful pairing between the moon and Venus. Sadly, I didn’t check focus so my images are not as good as they could be. The first of the talks began with Jonathan Bradshaw talking about doing (real and publishable) science with a small telescope. As Jonathan and others noted, perhaps his 20-inch telescope was not classed as small! The kids present in the audience enjoyed his video showing a star winking out as an asteroid passed in front of it. Jonathan does asteroid timings which enable us to accurately measure the size and shape of asteroids (they are too small to be resolved directly, even with the largest telescopes).
In addition to the stars, four planets and the moon were on display. Venus and the moon could be seen in the west after sunset, with Jupiter perfectly placed straight up. Saturn and Mars rose later in the night. As usual, both Saturn and Jupiter impressed viewers. Even in the cheap 5” scope, I was able to see the rings of Saturn despite having a magnification of just 20x.
Later in the evening I did my talk on Sungrazing Comets and got a surprisingly good attendance even though it was getting cold, and it followed the raffle. After getting some final astrophoto’s, I decided to pack up myself as the temperatures were starting head towards freezing point and I had relatively light clothing on. However, to sum up, congratulations on the SRAA for organizing such a fantastic event!
Although there was some high cloud (some is visible in this photo) conditions were generally very good for viewing. This is a single 40second exposure at ISO1600 (pushed to ISO3200) using a 14mm f4 lens and Olympus OMD EM5 mounted on a tripod
NOTE: All images are the authors.
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