Public Outreach – Crayford Manor House Astronomical Society Dartford

On Wednesday, January 8th, members of the Society visited Wentworth Junior School in Crayford for an evening of stargazing. Unfortunately, poor weather prevented outdoor stargazing, so the event moved indoors. Despite this, the pupils remained enthusiastic, engaging with the activities and asking questions about telescopes, meteors, the phases of the Moon, and the solar system. The pupils were also fascinated by images of recent auroral activity. Overall, it was a rewarding and enjoyable evening for everyone involved.

Wentworth School wrote in their newsletter ''Our year 5 children welcomed the Crayford Astronomy group to school. They came armed with different telescopes and a mountain of knowledge! This happened to fall on the day that snow was predicted. With snow comes clouds and limited visuals and therefore a tweak to the proceedings. The children experimented by looking at a model of Jupiter, and saw a variety of pictures of the sun, moons and planets that had been taken throughout the South East of England. They also learnt about the orientation, facts and amount of moons and other features you find in space. We even discovered that there was an asteroid named Wentworth! This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening arranged by the astronomy group and we are extremely grateful that they could share their expertise!''

CMHASD Chairman John Archer wrote ''Last night (Wed’s 8^th) a group of us returned to Wentworth Primary School, not far from Crayford, to educate and entertain the pupils. There were telescopes on display, activities in the gym & hall as well as a presentation on the night sky and member Aurora images. The teaching staff were delighted with how things went, and hoped we will return next year, (perhaps with clear skies).

I wanted to thank those who braved the sleet, and gave up their evening to share their interest and knowledge of astronomy with the younger generation – It’s entirely possible that the next generation of space explorers or alien life discoverers were with us last night – stranger things have happened!''

Below is a wonderful card made by the pupils in appreciation of our visit last week despite the horrible weather.

CMHASD supporting the BAA at New Scientist Live – ExCel London, October 2024

CMHASD Member Diane Clarke who helped over the 3 days wrote ''Over the 3 days of New Scientist Live, held at ExCel London from the 12th – 14th of October 2024 several members of the society along with other members of the BAA were on hand to help promote the BAA and answer questions from members of the public, school children and teachers alike on all things astronomical. Again, the 3D printed & hand painted scale models of Mars, Jupiter and M51, proved very popular with everyone who visited the stand, as did the Muon detectors that the BAA’s Radio Astronomy section brought along. All of these proved great talking points enabling us to make several sales as well as promoting membership of the BAA. The BAA’s Moon maps were as ever the most popular seller.

This was the BAA’s 7th in person New Scientist Live which this year saw 26,182 visitors pass through its doors.

All in all, everybody who staffed the stand enjoyed the experience. Over the 3 days their enthusiasm & knowledge radiated to everybody that visited the stand hopefully resulting in future new members of the BAA.

With regard to the effort that everybody put into this year’s New Scientist Live 2024, the BAA’s new President Janice McClean said - “It takes a whole team to make it and in my humble opinion I think this was an absolute top team effort”. CMHASD Members Diane Clarke, Steve Floodgate, David Grist, Debra Holton & Janice McClean were part of the team.''

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CMHASD Stargazing at Hall Place, Bexley – Wed 13th Nov 2024

On Wednesday 13th November 2024, CMHASD were back at Hall Place & Gardens to hold a star gazing event from 7pm to 9pm. We had brilliant support from our members who bought along a variety of telescopes, cameras, meteorites and other displays for our guests.

CMHASD Chairman John Archer wrote ''Firstly I wanted to extend my gratitude to everyone who supported our Stargazing event last week. We were extremely lucky that it was dry and mostly clear, albeit with a bit of high level haze, but nothing to prevent observations. We had a wide range of scopes for the public to try for size. Everything from smart scopes, to refractors and a couple of the Society Dob’s. The evening was a sell-out and everyone went away happy. Pretty much everyone had a chance to observe Jupiter (and her moons), Saturn and the Moon, which was eye-wateringly bright of course. The evening went very smoothly, a couple of talks, a smashing comet-making demo (thank you Debra) and lots and lots of Stargazing which seems to be the one thing the visitors were so looking forward to. For everyone who helped – thank you so much. We go again in 2025!''

Our next Star Gazing at Hall Place event is on the 5th February 2025.

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Shears Green Junior School Cosmic Camp – 27th Sept 2024

On Friday 27th September 2024 several CMHASD members helped out at Shears Green Junior School Cosmic Camp.

Chairman John Archer wrote ''First of all I really want to thank all of the team who supported our evening of outreach last Friday 27th. Once again we attended Cosmic Camp at Shears Green Junior School and were greeted by an enthusiastic audience, most of whom managed to observe Saturn, as well as a number of deep sky objects. There were indoor activities run by Rita and Debra, and the pupils were treated to our slideshow of members’ aurora images. Outside there were a range of scopes – Dob’s, a refractor and also Smartscopes, ably demonstrated by our hardy team including Steve, Dave, Andy, Diane, Mike, Jim & co – thank you all so much for giving up your time and getting involved – it was a wonderful and eventually clear night''.

Below are 2 of the images taken by members whilst at the school that the children saw.

M31 by Dr Mike Rushton using a Dwarf II smartscope with no processing. Stacked image of 200 x 10s exposures at gain 80.

M31 is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It is also known as The Andromeda Galaxy, Messier 31 and NGC 224. The galaxy is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years) from Earth. The galaxy's name stems from the area of Earth's sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda. Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy.

M27 by Diane Clarke (with the help of Jim Burchell) taken using a Seestar S50. Stacked image of 224 x 10s exposures. Processed using Affinity Photo.

M27 (also known as the Dumbbell Nebula, Apple Core Nebula, Messier 27, and NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula (nebulosity surrounding a white dwarf) in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1360 light-years. It was the first such nebula to be discovered, by Charles Messier in 1764. Ref:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbbell_Nebula.