Programme of Events

The wonders of the night skies are there for all to see, making astronomy a hugely accessible science. Many people get their lifelong professional interest in computing, engineering or science from a childhood interest in astronomy. Unfortunately, light pollution means that most city dwellers never get to admire a really dark sky while the relative complexity of using a telescope to take pictures means they never get to take their own images with a telescope. The Bradford Robotic Telescope (BRT), located in Tenerife, was designed to allow the public an opportunity to do both. Users can easily request their very own images to be taken by the telescope, under the protected dark skies of the Canary Islands. These might be images of the moon, planets, their ‘birth’ constellation, or a particularly beautiful galaxy or nebula they have admired in a book. The image is taken, stamped with the person’s name and emailed to them.

In this activity, University College Dublin (UCD) School of Physics and Cork Institute of Technology’s Blackrock Castle Observatory (BCO) will partner with the BRT team to deliver aspects of their learning materials to 5^th and 6^th class pupils and to TY students in 6 selected pilot schools. The students will learn how to plan and execute their own observations with a robotic telescope. In addition, the rich web-based learning environment will provide context and content for the pupils who use the BRT. Pupils can also develop their mathematical skills through, for example, measurements of angular size and brightness scales and can also develop computer skills in image processing.

For further info please contact: Prof. Lorraine Hanlon, School of Physics, UCD