Astronomy & Space Science

Astronomy

Lyon Group of Galaxies #455 – NGC 7232B, NGC 7233 and NGC 7232 Image proposed by Ryan Soares (12.1) Winner of the 2012 Gemini School Astronomy Contest. Award presented in 2013.

Astronomy & Space Science

Mr Bill Cooper Observatory Manager

The year 2012 ended with a group of 20 Trinity students flying off to Cairns to observe the last solar eclipse in Australia until 2028. Everyone should see a total eclipse at least once. We stood on the beach and shortly after dawn a huge rock, the Moon, came between us and the Sun. It went dark and quiet. We could see the chromosphere of the Sun and Mercury in the sky. To top it off, after breakfast we went to the Barrier Reef for the rest of the day to snorkel. It was an amazing day.

Camps have been rather indifferent this year. The ‘weather gods’ have not been on our side.

Samuel Carbone (9.5) came second in the Gemini School Astronomy Contest. The Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and Chile run a competition in which students must select and then justify imaging a particular part of the ground on scientific and aesthetic value. This is quite an achievement for Sam, who competed against Year 11 and Year 12 students across Australia and it bodes well for the coming years. Ryan Soares (12.1) came first in this competition in 2012 and second in 2011. In 2013 Ryan was presented with a framed copy of his image in recognition of his success. We had a video link with the Hawaiian observatory to discover how professional astronomers calibrate and process their images. One of the main goals of the observatory this year has been to make it a robust system so that little time is lost for students due to internet and computer issues. To that end we have replaced the observatory computer with two new ones, with one acting as a mirrored slave that we can switch to in the event of a problem.

Digital astronomy cameras are at the heart of our observatory and are quite specialised pieces of equipment, being sensitive enough to record individual photons with low levels of internal noise. The CCD chip that records the image is cooled to -30C to reduce thermal noise. Such technology does not come cheaply, but as with most IT equipment, Moore’s Law has meant that, over the years, we have been able to upgrade our camera and get more for less. We have replaced the camera this year for one that has an image four times larger but for half the cost of its predecessor.

Ryan Soares (12.1) is presented with his award Three generations of Trinity Observatory cameras

Our astronomy scholars, Paul Shaw (12.4) and Ryan Soares (12.1) have handed the batton to our new scholars, Luke Di Dio (10.1) and Julian Chilcott (10.3). Luke was instrumental in designing and building the Arduino based data logger that measured air pressure, internal and external temperature and background radiation on our high altitude balloon.

Luke Di Dio building the Arduino data logger After a great balloon launch this year we lost contact with our payload, so it’s out there somewhere! It was disappointing and we have had to review our tracking procedures, but failure is always an option when you are doing something innovative. It happened on the same weekend that the Australian hypersonic scramjet disappeared into the seas off Norway, at the end of a three-year $14 million program, so we didn’t feel so bad and we are still hopeful that a farmer will discover our box and give us a call.

Next year we will be collaborating with Milton Wainwright from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom to launch a balloon to sample the particulate matter in the stratosphere. A CD player, armed with six sterile electron microscope slides, will open at 22km above Earth and collect whatever particles are floating around onto the sticky pads. At 27km the drawer will close and will be collected, sealed and sent to the University of Sheffield for analysis. We expect to see material from volcanoes and particles from meteors and comets. Like the deep ocean regions this is a part of Earth that has not been well-explored, so who knows what we will find – that is if we can find the payload!

With so much space-based activities taking place we have decided to rebrand Astronomy and so is now Astronomy and Space Science. So this subject truly is of mega magnitude!

Mr Bill Cooper Observatory Manager