The Outreach team had a massive month of events in August 2019. Nearly half the month had something on! We did:
7 scout groups
2 interest groups (adults)
1 private booking
1 Public Viewing night
1 Fashion shoot
1 Film shoot for Prof. Alan Duffy
2 off-site events – one at McCleland Sculpture Park and one at Coolart Homestead as part of Science in the Park on August 11th.
Thank you all those Outreach members who turned up and made an effort. Some of us also had Young Observers, two committee meetings, Science Week, the Pro-Am workshop, the work bee and Friday night members nights! Whew! If some of us are looking a little tired at the moment, now you know why.
Telescopes offsite at McCleland Sculpture Park
At Coolart Homestead for Science in the Park
Our activity sheets all ready for Science in the Park
Part of our Moon exhibition at Coolart Homestead.
The fashion shoot!
Neil Creek does a quick lesson on image processing for a photography group.
Looking at Jupiter through thin cloud with the 18″ telescope.
Two days, thousands of people, lots of very loud planes… and MBO! Our team of Jacquie, Peter, Romy and Tony did a wonderful job over the two days. MBO was invited by the State Government to join their pavilion and what an opportunity to showcase what we do best!
James
2012 was the first opportunity for MBO to participate in National Science Week, and we did it by running a series of public lectures at the observatory in association with the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO). We were very lucky to have 5 enthusiastic and knowledgeable researchers from CAASTRO come out to Emerald to speak. An on-going feature of MBO has been our close ties with Melbourne’s astronomy research community which has both inspired young members of our community to pursue astronomy as a career but also allowed researchers to share their excitement about their subject.
The program was
Monday 13th August: Professor Warrick Couch (Swinburne)
“ELTs: the next generation of very large optical/infrared telescopes”
Tuesday 14th August: Stefan Oslowski (Swinburne)
“Pulsars – clocks in space”
Wednesday 15th August: Dr David Lagattuta (Swinburne)
“Holding up a (gravitational) lens to the Universe”
Thursday 16th August: Dr Edward Taylor (University of Melbourne)
“The cosmic perspective”
Friday 17th August: Professor Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne)
“The first galaxies”
It was also the opportunity for Bendigo Bank to present MBO a cheque for $2295 to purchase some Dobsonian telescopes to create our Astronomy classroom. Those telescopes are still in use and have been used to introduce thousands of people to astronomy.
Introducing Bendigo Bank to the domeAlfred Klink thanks Stuart WyitheWarrick Couch introduces ELTsThe certificate marking the Bendigo bank grant for our portable telescopesStefan Oslowski introduces pulsars as clocksThe audience fascinated by Stefan’s talkProfessor Warrick Couch, Director of AAOProfessor Warrick Couch talks about ELTsThe Wednesday night audience at MBO