New academic year, new ISSP groups!

As we enter a brand-new academic year, I hope to get this blog going again by enrolling the help of the students taking GCSE astronomy at Bootham.

This year, 32 new GCSE students for the course have been enrolled. This makes Bootham one of, if not the largest centres for this subject in the world! Although we are thrilled to have seen the many successful results of our last intake, our intention has always been to foster a real love of the subject, develop some practical skills and observational habits. Getting an A*, an A or a B as the vast majority of last year's 30 students managed to do is a byproduct, rather than an aim of our teaching.

We begin teaching again on Weds 12th September - I can't wait to meet everyone!

A nice trip to the observatory

It is always great fun introducing young people to practical Astronomy. Bootham boarders George and James learned how to use registax 5 and sharpcap 2 tonight to take these shots of the Moon.



Tomorrow, if the sky is clear they can come back and see how the changing solar angle alters the appearance of these craters.

ISS over Fox House

Here is a quick snap of the International Space Station passing over York on the 11th December at about half past five in the evening.

You can see the Pleiades on the left, and the trail of the ISS passes near the constellation Aries.

Hello, we're back

After a long hiatus following a tricky broken ankle that stopped me from getting up the stairs to the observatory, I am happy to say we're back in gear. There's a new Astronomy GCSE group, and we're really looking forward to the launch of our pocket spacecraft mission to the Moon some time this year (hopefully). With Jupiter at opposition and Venus magnificent in the evening sky, there's never been a better time to start posting to this blog again.


The next big event is on Friday 20th of course, when we will open up the observatory to the school's younger students for a live Radio York eclipse watch. I'm not sure if watching a partial solar eclipse will make great radio, but it will be fun trying to capture the moment...

SpotTheStation

Time: Thu Feb 20 6:31 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 41 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: SE