New Years' Eve 2009: Lunar eclipse and a Blue Moon

One thing is for sure - the Full Moon will past through the shadow of the Earth on New Years' Eve. For about 30 minutes either side of 19:24GMT, the bottom right of the Moon will be dark-red in colour (looking similar to the photo below taken in 2006). The bottom-right of the moon will appear red due to sunlight passing through the Earth's atmosphere and hitting the Moon, and our atmosphere only allows red light to go straight through, which is also why sunsets are red.
Do take a look while you are preparing your New Year celebrations!

One thing that is not so sure - will the full Moon on the 31^st also be a "Blue Moon"?

For sure, the Moon will not be the colour blue. But as with the expressions "Turned the air blue" or "Feeling blue", blue does not always refer to colour. And there is more confusion, since there are several definitions of "Blue Moon" in the English language.

The modern definition (thought to originate from an article in a 1946 article in the Sky & Telescope magazine) states that if a month has two full moon's, the second one is called a "Blue Moon". This definition is popular today probably due to its simplicity.

The older (pre-war) definition is that a "Blue Moon" is the third full Moon in a season with four. This is because each full moon has a name. For example, the full Moon in April in English Medieval times was known as the Seed Moon. If there was a second full moon in March, the Seed Moon would come too early for seeding crops, and so a "Blue Moon" was inserted and the following full-moon was called the "Seed Moon". So a "Blue Moon" was inserted to keep the names of all the other full moons synchronised.

Do enjoy the Full Moon of New Year's Eve - and why not go for a Blue Moon Walk to see in the New Year?

Sunlight seen glinting off the lakes of Titan

Telescopes on-board the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has seen Sun-light glinting off a lake on the moon Titan - amazing!

But they are not lakes of water. At -180°C, it's far too cold for that. These are lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, such as methane, on a part of the moon dotted with many lake-shaped basins. When the Huygen's probe landed on Titan in January 2005 it took the image to the left.

One has to wonder - could there be primitive life on Titan, or is it simply far too cold?

Happy Solstice!

At 17:47 GMT today, it is officially winter!

That is the time when the poles of the Earth are aligned with the Sun, which is what we call the solstice. The North pole is now pointing away from the Sun (the Winter Solstice, and the shortest day), in the Southern hemisphere, the South pole is pointing towards the Sun (the Summer Solstice).

The image below shows a stacked series of images taken 20 minutes apart throughout the 17th December, 2005 (within just a couple of days of the winter solstice), showing how the Sun moved across the sky during that day, from the South-East to the South-West. A timelapse movie version is also available, showing how low the Sun is in the sky at this time of year.

There are lots of special events to mark the solstice, including a gathering at Stonehenge in Wiltshire (see these photographs: #1, #2, #3, #4). Under the early Julian Calendar, the winter solstice actually occurred on the 25th of December, but because that calendar was not accurate, the solstice slipped to the 21st (the accuracy of the calendar was corrected with the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582).

However, we still traditionally keep the 25th of December as the day for celebration, and Christmas now includes a rich mix of celebrations, including Roman (Saturnalia, and Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, the birthday of the unconquered sun), Nordic Pagan festivals and the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ (see more about the origin of Christmas at this Wikipedia article).

Whichever way you choose to celebrate this time of year, we hope you will enjoy yourselves and have a very happy festive season!

This week's Active Sun

Although we are definitely at a solar minimum, that does not mean nothing is happening!

The sequence of images below, taken by the NASA/ESA SOHO Observatory, shows a small sun spot system moving over the last week, as the Sun itself rotates.

With a lot of imagination, you can half-believe that it looks a bit like a Christmas tree, too!

Merry Christmas everyone!

XMM-Newton: 10 years old today!

The XMM-Newton space telescope is celebrating its 10th anniversary in space!

Although there is a huge amount of British involvement in XMM-Newton, it truly is an international mission. In brief...

• Two out of three X-ray camera's were built (and are maintained) in the UK (pictured above-left);
• The optical/UV telescope was built in the UK;
• One X-ray camera was built in Germany;
• Two spectrometers (the RGS) were built in the Netherlands and the USA;
• All three X-ray mirror modules were built in Italy;
• Data analysis software and data storage by the UK & USA;
• The spacecraft was assembled in the Netherlands;
• Continuous XMM-Newton support is based in Spain, with support from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, and the USA;
• The radiation monitors were built in France;

XMM-Newton has made some amazing discoveries about the high-energy Universe in that decade. Lots of images from those XMM-Newton discoveries can be found online at the XMM-Newton image gallery, and a slideshow is available on the BBC News online website, narrated by myself (Dr Darren Baskill) and my colleague Dr Kathy Romer here at the University of Sussex's Department of Physics & Astronomy.

Geminid meteor shower peaks

We are currently travelling through dust left behind by an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon, which we think is an extinct comet. As the Earth travels through space at an astonishing 70,000 mph, these bits of dust hit the atmosphere causing "shooting stars" as the dust burns up.

You can see these shooting stars throughout mid-December, but the main peak is from the 12th to the 14th of December where you could see up to two a minute under ideal conditions.

It is (unfortunately!) best to see shooting stars in the early morning, a few hours before sunrise, since that is when we are stood on the "front" of the Earth as it orbits around the Sun. It's a bit like driving through snow - it looks best looking forward where you see all the snow rushing towards you, and it's not so exciting when you look out of the back window.

LHC talk at Sussex

Institute of Physics

South Central Branch - Brighton area - presents

Particle physics
and the Large Hadron Collider

Speaker: Dr David Newbold, University of Bristol
Date: Tuesday 8 December
Time: 19h00
Location: University of Sussex, Pevensey 1 building, room 1A7

The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s biggest scientific instrument. After twenty years of design and construction, collisions will start within the next few weeks, the first step on a new voyage of discovery into the world of the incredibly small.

Dr Dave Newbold will explain why particle physics appears complex, but is actually simple — but how building the accelerator and experiments has been more challenging than you might think. He’ll take a look at how the LHC works, see how the experiments are carried out, and talk about some of the new discoveries that could be made in the coming years.

December's Night Sky

This is the month to take advantage of, and enjoy, the long nights!

The earliest sunset here in Sussex occurs at 15:54 on the 12th of December, and the shortest day is on the 21^st this year. The Earth is tilted, and the shortest day occurs when that side of the Earth is tilted directly away from the Sun - and so the solstice actually occurs at a specific moment in time, at 17:46 on the 21^st December, 2009.

The increasingly inaccurately named summer-triangle is still visible, low in the west, but only until 7.30pm - ideal for after-school observing events! And the Andromeda galaxy is still well placed in the evening sky (see last months posting for full details about both of those).

Jupiter is still a wonderful sight until about 8pm throughout the month - just look for the brightest object you can find, low in the west, and that will be Jupiter! Look through binoculars or a small telescope to see four of the 60 moons that orbit this gas giant.

The 21^st of December is a great day for a photo' opportunity. That late afternoon and early evening, the planet Jupiter is visible just below the Moon. And just to the top-right of Jupiter, is the planet Neptune - although you will need a telescope to see Neptune, as it is 10,000 times fainter than Jupiter!

Rising at 8pm in the east is the constellation of Orion - a very familiar sight in the winter skies, thanks to the three stars that form a straight line, and which are known as Orion's belt (as in the photo to the left). Just below those three stars in a line, are another group of three stars in a line... only, the middle star is not a star at all, but a huge gas cloud where stars are in the process of forming. You can see it with your own eyes, but look through a telescope and you can see much more detail, and take a long exposure photo', and you can see even more detail! The movie below shows the difference between looking through a telescope yourself, and taking a 15 minute long exposure photograph.

You can get some very easy-to-use and clear star maps from either Skymaps.com, or by using the excellent (and free) Stellarium Planetarium software.

The Large Hadron Collider restarts

Yesterday, the world's largest experiment - the Large Hadron Collider at Cern - was restarted after 14 months of repairs.

Full details of the LHC restart can be seen on the BBC News online (and they also have a guide to the LHC).

The University of Sussex's involvement in the Large Hadron Collider is detailed here, and the scientists involved are willing to talk to your school about it! See our outreach offerings for information.

5 Years of Swift

Gamma Ray Bursts are know to be the biggest bangs since the big bang! And NASA's Swift space telescope celebrated 5 years of observing these bursts just a few days ago - it was launched on November the 20th, 2004.

And as with most space telescopes, British astronomers play a key role.

Scientists at the University of Leicester designed the X-ray telescope on-board, built the X-ray camera's, and continue to calibrate and monitor its health. Leicester also hosts the UK Swift Science Data Centre. The Mullard Space Science Laboratory, part of the University College London, helped build the Ultra-violet and optical telescope.

UK scientists at both Leicester and MSSL are also on call throughout the day and night for when a burst goes off, to assess whether to follow up the observation with larger ground-based telescopes. Such decisions need to be made within minutes. A full list of UK-based scientists involved in the Swift Space Telescope can be found here on Swift's UK website.

The key thing about Swift is that it is, well, swift! Swift can detect a burst of gamma-rays occurring in about a quarter of the entire sky, and then automatically and rapidly (within 30 seconds!) turn around to scrutinise the rapidly fading explosion with its other on-board telescopes (the X-ray and optical telescopes).

There are two types of gamma-ray bursts - short bursts that last on average about 0.3 seconds, and the long bursts that on-average last about 30 seconds.

Before Swift, scientists knew very little about the short bursts (for obvious reasons... they happened too quickly!), and Swift was the first telescope to discover where these quick explosions were coming from. While scientists are still unsure as to what causes them, the leading idea is that they originate from the mergers of binary neutron stars.

The longer bursts are usually seen to occur with a supernova, which unambiguously links long bursts to the deaths of massive stars... although, strangely, some relatively nearby long bursts appear to have no accompanying supernova. As is often the case in science, when one mystery is solved, another appears!

And because these burst of gamma-rays are the biggest explosions known to man, we can see very distant bursts. The most distant object known, the red object pictured here, is a Gamma-ray burst seen by Swift (see this BBC News story).

Leonids meteor shower

On Tuesday, the Leonid meteor shower peaks, so go outside and enjoy the darkness over the next few days, as the Earth drives through the debris left behind by comet Tempel-Tuttle!

The Leonid meteor shower is more unpredictable than most. On some years, intense storms of meteors have been seen. In 1833, it is predicted that over 100,000 meteors were seen per hour! While we don't expect anywhere near that number this year, and we expect the shower to be best seen from Australia, meteor showers are notoriously unpredictable, so they are always worth a look.

More details can be seen on the Wikipedia.

November's Night Sky

The sun is setting at around 5pm during November, so here is how to enjoy the long winter nights!

The highlight of the evening sky is the planet Jupiter, visible low in the south to south-west up until 10.30pm in the evening. Take a look at Jupiter with binoculars, or a small telescope, and see how many of Jupiter's Moons you can spot – just as Galileo did 400 years ago. You should be able to see up to four moons, and if you take another look just a few hours later, you may be able to notice that the moons have moved a bit in just that very short period of time.

The planets Uranus and Neptune are also visible in the evening sky, but they are just-too-faint to be seen with the unaided eye, which is why these two planets were not discovered until after the invention of the telescope.

Early in the evening, looking towards the west, you can still see the summer triangle of stars – Vega, Altair and Deneb – until about 9pm (see the chart to the right; click on it to see it full size). Within the triangle, you can see the remains of two dead stars using a telescope – the ring and dumbbell nebulae. There is also a beautiful double star called Albireo within the triangle.

This is also a great time of year to see the Andromeda galaxy – the most distant object that you can see with your own eyes! It may be 2.25 million light-years away, but it is quite easy to find. Just go somewhere dark, away from the light pollution and inefficient lighting of our towns and cities, and look for the square of Pegasus. The square can be found by looking towards the South, about half way up the sky. It’s quite a big square – just bigger than your hand at arms length. Look towards the star that makes the top-left corner of the square, then follow two bright-ish stars up towards the top left, and then follow two more slightly fainter stars towards the top right (as in the map, right), and just there is the Andromeda galaxy! The W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia also usefully “points” towards the galaxy.

And it is huge! It is actually six times the diameter of the full Moon, but it appears faint because it is so far away, and so with our own eyes we can only see the bright centre of this massive city-of-stars. For the best view, take a look through binoculars (telescopes usually have too high a magnification for you to see this galaxy clearly).

Now look to the left of the square of Pegasus, about 4 times its size, and you will see a bright red giant star called Aldebaran. Just to the top-right of Aldebaran, you’ll be able to see the Pleiades star cluster, also know as the seven sisters because you can see up to seven stars with your own eyes (pictured left as a wide-angle view, and right as a close-up photograph). This cluster is a beautiful sight through binoculars, where you can see up to 50 stars. Again, don’t use a telescope, since you will only be able to see one or two stars at a time – low magnification is what you need for a cluster that appears bigger than the Moon in the night sky.

You can get some very easy-to-use and clear star maps from either skymaps.com, or by using the excellent (and free) Stellarium Planetarium software.

All go at the Large Hadron Collider!

There has been two important bits of news about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the worlds largest experiment which is devoted to the study of particle physics.

First up, the Experimental Particle Physics team here at the University of Sussex have now officially become part of the LHC team! The full story can be seen on the University News pages.

And secondly, scientists have successfully inserted protons into the collider (although no collisions have taken place as yet). The full story of that can be seen on the BBC News.

Activity on the Sun

The Sun has an 11 year cycle of activity, and for the last two years the Sun has been very quiet indeed. Last year had the second fewest number of sun spots - in only 1913 was the Sun less active (see this plot of inactivity).

So it has been nice to see a few sunspots on the Sun over the last few days, as shown in the SOHO observatory image below.

A nice image for sure... But I'm still looking forward a few years, when the Sun will (hopefully!) look more like the following image taken in November 2003!

Clocks go back at the weekend

Don't forget to change your clocks back on Sunday morning, the 25^th of October!

On Sunday morning at 2am, the clocks have to be changed back by one hour, as we change from British Summer time and back to the more traditional Greenwich Mean Time, or Universal Time as it is also known.

We change the clocks so that have more daylight in the summer evenings, and change them back so that we have some daylight to go to work (and, more importantly, school) in a winters morning.

Do you think we should continue to change the time on our clocks?

Cassini Scientist for a Day Competition 2009

Would you like to be a scientist for a day, and use the Cassini spacecraft which is orbiting Saturn?

The are a huge number of areas around Saturn that Cassini can be used to study in detail - the storms in Saturn's atmosphere, the rings that are divided into 33 different sections, and any one of the 61 moons that orbit the planet!

Scientists working on the Cassini Mission have chosen three key targets. These are:

• Saturn and its rings
• Tethys and its effect on the outer-most E-ring of Saturn
• Titan

Your challenge is to decide which of these is the most scientifically valuable, and make your case in 500 words. The competition is open to all students at school or college in the UK and Ireland, between the ages of 11 to 18.

Deadline for competition entries is the 30th October!

Full details, including links to the YouTube videos that will help you decide on your preferred target, are available at the Queen Mary University of London website.

X-treme Astronomy Seeing the Universe through X-ray Eyes

by Dr Darren Baskill of the University of Sussex

...is the next Institute of Physics South Central Branch (Brighton Area) lecture, and is to be held at the University of Sussex.

A beautiful clear night full of stars may look poetically peaceful, but it's the biggest illusion known to man. The Universe is violent almost beyond comprehension. Some stars you can see in the night sky are being consumed by their partners; others are violently collapsing in the biggest explosions known to man; and black holes are surrounded by disks of hot gas, the distorted remains of countless stars.
X-rays originate from wherever gas is heated up to millions of degrees in the most energetic phenomena we know of. During this talk you will see the universe as witnessed through the eyes of the latest generation of X-ray telescopes.

X-treme Astronomy - Seeing the Universe through X-ray Eyes
by Dr Darren Baskill of the University of Sussex
7pm, on Tuesday 13th October
Lecture Theatre 1A7
Pevensey 1 Building
University of Sussex


Admission is free and everyone is welcome. Details of how to get to the venue can be found here.

Image: XMM-Newton, Europe's X-ray Space Telescope

Chance to observe with Gemini!

Would your school students like to use one of the biggest telescopes in the world?!

The Gemini Observatory consists of a pair of identical telescopes, one in Chile and one in Hawai'i, and each one has a massive 8 meter diameter mirror! They are positioned on the planet so that the two telescopes can between them observe almost any part of the night sky. A quarter of the funding for Gemini is from the UK.

If your school would like to win the chance to remotely observe with Gemini, all you need to do is send an outline of what you would like to observe and why it is interesting (maximum 500 words) to ukgemini@astro.ox.ac.uk by the 16th of October, 2009! The competition is open to all students from UK schools and science clubs in years 11, 12 and 13.

For more details, please see the competition website.

October's Night Sky

October is traditionally the month when you notice that the Earth is moving through space, as this is the time of year when the nights are rapidly drawing in. As the month begins, the Sun is rising at 7am and setting at 18:30. By the end of the month, the Sun is rising an hour later and setting an hour earlier. Plus, we change the clocks back to normal on the 25th to give us some daylight in the morning, and so the sunset occurs another hour earlier. By the month's end, the Sun will be setting over Sussex at 16:30!

This is all because the Earth is tilted as it orbits the Sun. In summer, our side of the Earth is tilted towards the Sun; in winter, it is tilted away – and there is a difference of 47° between the two.

All this tilting also means that the summer triangle of stars is still visible at this time of year. Look directly upwards as soon as it goes dark and the brightest three stars you can see, covering quite a large patch of sky, are the summer triangle stars.

There are some amazing sights that can be seen in the summer triangle when using even a small telescope, such as the ring and dumbbell nebulae – the glowing remains of exploded stars. The star close to the centre of the triangle is a beautiful double star called Albireo – but you will need a telescope to be able to see this star as a pair, since they are so close together in the night sky.

At this time of the year the Milky-way, the city of stars within which we live, can be clearly seen for the first-half of the night from anywhere away from light pollution. The photograph to the left was taken from the outskirts of Brighton. The lower you look at the milky-way, the closer you are looking at the bright centre of our galaxy.

During October, Jupiter (as also seen in the photograph to the left) is rising in the south-east at sunset, and setting in the west at 2am when Mars is rising. Jupiter is the brightest object in the night sky at the moment (after the Sun and Moon, of course!), and if you go somewhere that is beautifully dark, away from any light pollution, you will be able to see your own shadow cast by the light reflected from Jupiter. As a guide, the Moon will be to the top right of Jupiter on the 26th of October, and to the top left on the 27th.

Take a look through a small telescope or binoculars, and you will be able to see up to four dots in a line around Jupiter. Those four dots are the four biggest and so brightest Moons of Jupiter, so bright that there were easily seen by Galileo 400 years ago with one of the first (and so very primitive) telescopes. Sometimes, one of those moons are hidden behind or in front of Jupiter – so just take a look an hour or two later to see if another moon has reappeared into view.

The darkest nights of the month will be from the 15th to the 25th of the month, when the Moon is close to new (the new Moon, when the Moon is in line with the Sun, occurs on the 18th of October). Full moon occurs on the 4th of October, and the 2nd of November, and so the sky is awash with moon light at the start and end of the month.

We hope you enjoy October’s beautiful night-skies! And if you want to see the night sky as it will be at any time on your own computer, I recommend that you download the excellent and free Stellarium software.

Sussex physicists named science Student and Lecturer of the Year

Sussex physics graduate Debbie Hill has been named best overall student of the year, and lecturer Dr Mike Hardiman has been named best lecturer of the year, in the 2009 Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) awards. Debbie also won the National Physical Laboratory Award for the Best Physics Student.

Mike leads the outreach efforts here at the University of Sussex's Department of Physics & Astronomy, while Debbie is equally enthusiastic, having recently spent a day helping a group of 15 year olds build their own cloud chambers, allowing the students to see cloud tracks created by otherwise invisible radiation.

Mike and Debbie both carry out research on the neutron-EDM experiment, part of a major physics experiment in Grenoble, France. The nEDM experiment ultimately aims to answer the question of why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, by finding if a small asymmetry exists within the neutron itself.

More details at the University of Sussex news page.

Water, water, everywhere...?

We believe that water is one of the key ingredients for life, and this is often discussed in schools, and so it have been interesting to hear the reports of water on the Moon and Mars over the last few days.

Last week, the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter discovered that areas of the lunar surface are slightly damp... slightly meaning that the Moon is still dryer than the driest of Earth's deserts! But there is water present. Full details of that can be found on the Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

Orbiting Mars, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered 100 fresh meteor impact craters. On Earth, most meteors burn up in our atmosphere, and do not reach the ground. But the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than ours, allowing far more meteors to hit the surface. And when a crater is formed, you can see what is just beneath the martian surface... and it appears to be ice. More details of this story at the NASA-Science website, and on the BBC News.

This also implies that had the robotic arm on NASA's Viking 2 (which landed on Mars back in 1976) been just 10 cm longer, it might have struck ice!

Autumnal Equinox

The Earth is tilted by 23.5°, and at 21:18 GMT on September the 22nd, this tilt will be neither towards or away from the Sun. The north pole of the Earth is tilted in the same direction - towards the star Polaris - throughout the year (although this will change slightly over thousands of years). But bfore 21:18 GMT on September the 22nd, the north pole of the Earth was pointed slightly towards the Sun (which is why we had summer in the northern hemisphere), and after that moment, the north pole of the Earth will be tilted slightly away from the Sun, which is why we have autumn beginning in the northern hemisphere.

This means that on this day we have - to within minutes - an even length of day and night. The name "equinox" originates from Latin words for equal (aequus) and night (nox).

The date of the equinox varies each year because the Earth orbits the Sun in 365.2422 days, and not 365 days exactly! This is also why we have a leap-day every four years, allowing our calendars to catch up with the orbit of the Earth.

More information about the equinoxes can be found on the Wikipedia.

Quiet Sun

The Sun has an 11 year cycle of activity - and we're currently in a low point. There has not been a single spot on the Sun for 45 days in a row! That means that we are now in the deepest solar minimum for a hundred years (and that we cannot blame the Sun for global warming).

Being that there are no Sun-spots, you might think that it is a bad time to be using a solar telescope - but that is not the case (which is fortunate for us here at Sussex since we have two solar telescopes that are available for schools to use!).

Take a look at this image taken by the SOHO observatory...

Even when the Sun is in a quiet state, jets of hot gas can be seen though a solar telescope. For the latest images, take a look at the SOHO realtime data page.

And remember, never look at the Sun directly since it will damage your eyes. Always use equipment with the appropriate solar filters.

More website additions...

As we continue to plan and develop our outreach offerings in time for the return of the school and college students, our website is also rapidly developing!

You can now view our events calendar online, where you can see if the fixed-dates events are fully booked or still available. And do take a look at our ever-expanding selection of activities and talks that we can offer to your school or college.

Perseids Meteor Shower: More tonight?

Some amazing photographs are appearing on the internet of last night's Perseid meteor shower, such as this photograph below taken by local astronomer Pete Lawrence in West Sussex.

Perseid Meteor Shower

It is the time of year again when the Earth passes through the debris left behind by Comet Swift Tuttle.

For the last 10 days, the number of meteors (shooting stars) have been greater that usual, and I myself saw a bright meteor through partial cloud a few nights ago. But over the next few nights and mornings (the 11th and 12th), the Earth will be going through the heart of the debris stream. The plot below, from British amateur radio astronomer Dave Swan (see the radio meteor observers website for other contributors), shows the number of meteors, tiny bits of rock less than a millimeter in size, currently burning up over the UK.

As you can see from Dave's data, we see more meteors after midnight than before. But why is this?

Our Earth is orbiting around the Sun at 70,000 mph. In the evening, we are looking backwards, at where the Earth has been. But in the morning, we are looking forward in the direction of Earth's travel around the Sun. If you've ever driven through falling snow in a car, you will realise that it is more exciting looking forwards than looking backwards, and so you see more meteors burning up in the Earth's atmosphere looking into space after midnight than before.

It is also best to go somewhere dark, well away from the light pollution of the cities. The darker your location, the more meteors you will see - and you may see a sight that you will always remember!

Outreach Launch Party

On the 14th of July, 2009, over 50 teachers from around the region came to visit the University of Sussex, to see the launch of outreach offerings from the department of Physics & Astronomy.

Activities included:

• a tour of the research facilities
• demonstrations of hands-on workshops for schools kids
• watching radiation passing through cloud chambers
• GCSE revision experiments
• our new roof-top robotic observatory
• solar telescope demonstrations
• plus the chance to talk to members of the department, both staff and students

The event was a tremendous success, and everyone enjoyed themselves! We also got lots of valuable feedback from visitors, and ideas to put into our program for next year.

We'd like to thanks all those who made the effort to come and visit, and we really value your thoughts and ideas. And we look forward to seeing you all again at some point in the future, either here on campus, or at your school.

Under-graduate students Nick and Darren (left), and lecturer Jon Loveday (right), all from the Physics & Astronomy department of the University of Sussex, show off the selection of telescopes available for visiting schools to use.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Physics & Astronomy Outreach blog, here at the University of Sussex!

This blog will contain...

• Previews & reminders of up-and-coming events
• Reviews of past events
• Latest news in Physics & Astronomy - with special relevance to teaching, and the University of Sussex.

We hope you will enjoy reading the blog, and if you do have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know at physicsoutreach@sussex.ac.uk