{"id":16173,"date":"2012-09-24T06:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T18:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=16173"},"modified":"2012-09-23T20:20:26","modified_gmt":"2012-09-23T08:20:26","slug":"stargazing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/24\/stargazing\/","title":{"rendered":"Stargazing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_16178\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/24\/stargazing\/mt-john-visit-041a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16178\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16178\" class=\" wp-image-16178 \" title=\"Mt John Visit 041a\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-041a-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-041a-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-041a-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-041a.jpg 461w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16178\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">MOA Observatory at Mt John<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I spent this last weekend at Mt John Observatory, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz\/research\/mt_john\/index.shtml\">University of Canterbury astronomical research facility<\/a>, on a stargazing expedition organised by the University of Canterbury&#8217;s Alumni &amp; Development office.<\/p>\n<p>Needless to say it was interesting and informative: I got to look at and through a variety of telescopes, as well as seeing stars(!), experiencing the amazing location, and enjoy briefings from\u00a0 a number of the people associated with the Mt John Observatory, including:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16177\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/24\/stargazing\/mt-john-visit-033a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16177\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16177\" class=\" wp-image-16177 \" title=\"Mt John Visit 033a\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-033a-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-033a-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-033a-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-033a.jpg 461w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16177\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mt John environs: the Mackenzie Basin<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>Alan Gilmore, one of the UC Mt John Observatory resident superintendents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr Karen Pollard, of the UC&#8217;s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Director of the observatory<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Graeme Murray of Earth and Sky Ltd talking about the newly established <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/the-press\/news\/7074544\/Southern-skies-get-starlight-reserve-status\">Dark Sky Reserve<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_16180\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/24\/stargazing\/mt-john-visit-023a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16180\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16180\" class=\" wp-image-16180 \" title=\"Mt John Visit 023a\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-023a-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-023a-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-023a-112x150.jpg 112w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-023a.jpg 346w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16180\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The 1.6 metre MOA telescope, largest of the 5 at Mt John<\/p><\/div>\n<p>And those &#8220;stars&#8221; I got to see included Saturn, Uranus, Alpha Centauri&#8212;including seeing both stars in the binary, the Tarantula nebula, the Jewel Box globular cluster and one other, much older cluster.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16181\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/09\/24\/stargazing\/mt-john-visit-017a\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-16181\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16181\" class=\" wp-image-16181 \" title=\"Mt John Visit 017a\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-017a-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-017a-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-017a-112x150.jpg 112w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Mt-John-Visit-017a.jpg 346w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-16181\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Checking out the angles--the UoC 1 metre telescope<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We also looked at the the moon, which I have to say was\u00a0 looking rather spectacular!<\/p>\n<p>Plus looking at film taken of the aurora australis (Southern Lights) from the observatory.<\/p>\n<p>So as Oscar Wilde would have it (although am adapting slightly): even if not quite lying in the gutter, I have definitely been looking at the stars! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent this last weekend at Mt John Observatory, the University of Canterbury astronomical research facility, on a stargazing expedition organised by the University of Canterbury&#8217;s Alumni &amp; Development office. Needless to say it was interesting and informative: I got to look at and through a variety of telescopes, as well as seeing stars(!), experiencing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-space-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16173"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16193,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16173\/revisions\/16193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}