St Richard's Gifted & Talented Yr8s

Yesterday, Mr Pert and seven Yr8 students from Uplands [Charlie Oliver, Oscar Silburn, Amy Walter, Reece Lyons, Amie Smith, Cambell Chase & Joe Smiles] attended a Gifted & Talented conference at St Richard's Catholic College in Bexhill. We were one of eight schools invited.

The highlight for the 60-odd G&T students (and Mr Pert) was the star of the morning, Johny Ball, who gave a very entertaining talk on mathematics in many forms, including topics as varied as the Egyptian Pyramids and binary numbers! As those who remember him, from television shows back in the 1970s to 1990s, might guess, Mr Ball applied his usual sense of humour and enthusiasm to his favourite topic!

Some schools (including Chailey, Grove (Hastings), Bexhill high and Uplands) remained after lunch to participate in the afternoon's Science Masterclasses. The students had the choice of three workshop groups: solar telescope; spectroscopy (flame tests based on Einstein's e=hf) and a Faulkes Telescope session run by Mr Pert.

Faulkes Telescope group:
Before the time they were booked to take control of the Faulkes Telescope in Hawaii at 2.30pm (BST), the students in Mr Pert's workshop had plenty of opportunity to talk about the telescope and to use the Stellarium program to explore the Hawaiian night sky in advance. They chose several interesting objects they would like to view and take images of. Normally, Mr Pert will check the images are within the telescope's range, and not too close to the horizon or other bright objects, such as the Moon, Jupiter or Saturn, but this time he took the plunge and let the students enter the RA and Dec of each object they'd found.

The first two came out nicely:

Cocoon Nebula Sky Object Name: cocoon
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:36:23 UTC
RA: 21h53'24"
DEC: 47°16'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01


Triangulum Galaxy (M33) Sky Object Name: triangulum galaxy
Taken By: Uplands Community College
When taken: Jul 12, 2010 13:44:08 UTC
RA: 1h33'54"
DEC: 30°39'00"
Filter: RGB
Exposure time: 30 secs.
Instrument: EM01

Unfortunately, as luck would have it (and weather is one of those unpredictable things in life we often put down to luck!) it clouded over half way through the session, producing these two disappointing images:

M72 and M59
. . . .

Once control of the telescope came to an end, the group were able to look at the images, discuss the session and answer questions.

Thanks to St Richard's, Johny Ball and those who ran the workshops, the day was thoroughly enjoyed by all!