A night with the stars

We spent an evening at the Mount John Observatory in Tekapo, South Island. The boys were partly motivated by a chance to see more stars than ever before, partly by the guarantee of a late bedtime and partly by the hot chocolate and brownie they lay on for you. 

Checking out the sunset properly......

We donned the warm jackets provided, which we were later thankful for, Frankie's almost touching the floor.  The bus took us up the mountainside as the driver explained the unique 'dark' environment that the observatory enjoys, being far away from any towns and cities. The small town of Tekapo itself benefits from cleverly constructed lighting that produces virtually no upwardly-directed light pollution.  

Jake, our guide, showed us Australasia's largest telescope, with a 1.8 metre mirror so powerful that it can capture light images a million times fainter than the human eye. On the mountain itself, no white light is allowed after 4pm  - the telescope's sensitivity to light is exemplified by the fact that it can pick up residual light from a fluorescent tube for up to four hours after its been turned off!

Australasia's largest - and most expensive - telescope, with a 1.8m mirror.

The guide amazed us with some facts, which the boys played back to us afterwards "Wow, Daddy, there are 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and twice as many planets!  Plus there are millions of galaxies too!" Like us, they were drawn by the Southern Cross, and the two stars nearby to the left, Alpha and Beta Centauri that help you distinguish the Southern Cross from other would-be crosses. 

Probably something that every schoolchild in the Southern Hemisphere
already knows, but we thought it was clever!.

We learned a useful way of finding your bearings if you are lost at night (providing you are in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's not cloudy, of course!)  You imagine a line from the top to bottom of the Southern cross and then extrapolate this across the sky. Where this is bisected by a perpendicular line rising from the centre of a line connecting Alpha and Beta Centauri, you have found the Southern Celestial Pole.  A plumbline down to the horizon from that point will be South.  Alternatively just don't go out hiking alone at night down here without a compass.

This looks very much like we are standing up in front of a giant TV screen,
but it's truly a real photo with a slow exposure, honest!!!

We looked through some telescopes at the night sky and saw Jupiter's moons, Orion's Belt, found out about dark nebula - starless patches that look even darker than the rest of the night sky due to dust that blocks out the light we would otherwise see - and even enjoyed a flypast from the International Space Station. It was a valuable introduction to astronomy for the boys, and one that has got us looking to the skies more purposefully now than in the past.