advice please...

mocar

hi,
my daughter nearly 11 is really into astronomy. She has stary night beginner on our pc and a good pair of binoculars and is constantly out looking at the stars etc....we live in a very rural area so there is virtually no light pollution..... ok my question is what should i do to further her interest....what clubs could she join. I was going to bring her to dunsink....but i heard they dont let kids in.....i remember going there as a kid though....any advice would be very gratefully received. thanks
m

albertw

Hi,

Originally posted by mocar
my daughter nearly 11 is really into astronomy. She has stary night beginner on our pc and a good pair of binoculars and is constantly out looking at the stars etc....we live in a very rural area so there is virtually no light pollution.....

Glad to hear of youngsters taking an interest! Lucky you with no light pollution!

ok my question is what should i do to further her interest....what clubs could she join.

Join at least a national club, and if possible a local club. Nationally your best bet (and I am biased!) is probably the Irish Astronomical Society (www.esatclear.ie/~ias). I see your location is in the `midlands`, Shannonside Astronomy Club has a fairly large catchment area so they might be of use. Also I know some members of the South Dublin Club go down to Mullingar occasionally to help a gentleman there out in his private observatory when he has public nights. I don't have his name or details to hand but I can find out and get back to you if you would be interested. More details on astronomy clubs around the country can be found on www.irishastronomy.org.

You may also want to consider looking at some of the main magazines such as `Astronomy Now`, `Astronomy` or `Sky and Telescope`. Astronomy & Space Ltd. publish Astronomy & Space Magazine. Any largeish news stand should stock them. These are not clubs though, they are ran by profit making companies.[1]

I was going to bring her to dunsink....but i heard they dont let kids in.....i remember going there as a kid though....any advice would be very gratefully received. thanks
m [/B]

I'm not aware of any restriction on kids, and I doubt they would object to having an interested almost 11 year old there. I've definatly seen kids there before. Details of their open nights are available at http://www.dunsink.dias.ie/open_body.html , you need to write and ask for tickets.
The IAS also have members nights in Dunsink twice a month.

Cheers,
~Al
--
Member, Irish Astronomical Society


[1] RedShift: That paragraph is possibly in breach of the draft Charter, so delete it if you wish. I though it was worth adding for completeness though.

mocar

Thanks very much for the reply. I live on the laois kildare border just outside monestrevin. Is there any good websites for kids? :cool:
My daughter is her beside me and wants to know if the eclipse will be visible and what time on saturday if it is?
thanks
mo

albertw

Originally posted by mocar
Thanks very much for the reply. I live on the laois kildare border just outside monestrevin. Is there any good websites for kids? :cool:
My daughter is her beside me and wants to know if the eclipse will be visible and what time on saturday if it is?

The only website for kids that I know of is http://kids.msfc.nasa.gov/ though there are probably others, I'll ask around.

As for the Lunar eclipse, yes it will be visible, provided the clouds go away!

The `Prenumbral phase` begins at 22:15 on Saturday night, this is when the Earth stars to pass between the Sun and Moon.

The `Partial phase` begins at 23:32, this is where the Earth completely blocks out the sun on a part of the moon.

And full totality where the Earth is directly between the Sun and Moon stars at 01:06 Sunday Morning, and lasts until 01:30. So she will have to stay up late!

You mentioned earlier that you have `Starry Night`. You should be able to set the time on that to Saturday night, center on the Moon, and then step through till about 2am and she should get an idea of what to expect. You can also change your location to the moon and watch the eclipse from there with the program too.

Cheers,
~Al

mocar

Thanks a million. she just did as you suggested on starry night and is now hoping the clouds go away.
thanks so much for all the help. Maybe a subscribtion to one of the clubs might be a nice christmas present from santa:D

oscarBravo

Originally posted by albertw
Also I know some members of the South Dublin Club go down to Mullingar occasionally to help a gentleman there out in his private observatory when he has public nights. I don't have his name or details to hand but I can find out and get back to you if you would be interested.

John Noonan, by any chance? I worked with him years ago, he had (and probably still has) a pretty decent observatory attached to the house.