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NEWS
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October 2008
The sixth form members all sign up to take the Open University
‘Introducing Astronomy’ course. It
is worth 1/36th of a degree!
They will need to know astronomy in greater depth than the GCSE
course but not so much breadth. They had to pay for half the course themselves
so they have put their money where their brain is.
We now have a Sega Homestar
planetarium projector. It needs a
pitch-black room so the only place we can use it is the drama studio. It works great though; giving a very realistic
image of the Milky Way by projecting 10,000 stars.
September Special Notice
It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of one of
the past members of the astronomy group. Peter Meijer
took part in the North and South project and went as a Science Ambassador
to South Africa in the summer of 2005. His work in
SA schools was inspirational. He will be greatly missed by everyone who
knew him. Peter's report on the project can be read here.
September 2008
It's been a while since we did an update but we have all been
busy doing astronomy. Several members have made some great images of the
night sky, we all went on a fantastic visit to the Royal Observatory,
Greenwich, London and several of the 6th form are about to start a short
course on Astronomy with the Open University.
Our friends at Visisizwe School in South Africa have also been busy experimenting
with rockets, observing the Sun and the night sky and visiting primary
schools to spread their knowledge and enthusiasm.
June 2007
GCSE group make models of the
lunar surface.
May 2007
Year 11 science students make Big
Bang posters.
April 2007
Above Ross and Jessica experiment in recreating the phases of
the Moon using a pingpong ball.
March 2007
We start a new after-school GCSE Astronomy group. Over
25 students enroll. The first lesson was about planet Earth with a
chance to make scale models out of plasticine.
November 2006
We had a telescope making competition. The winner was
the scope that read an upside down book from the greatest distance.
 
October 2006
The lower school astronomy club is now a part of SciCom! With weekly meetings offering hands-on
experiences of all aspects of science. Once a month the theme will be on
space science. This month we will be building telescopes. Participants will
able to achieve the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science)
Science
Communicators Awards
July 2006
In the last meeting of the year we found out about meteor
showers and target to look for over the summer.
March 2006
We found out about the Cassini mission
and had a go at making model Saturns.
November 2005
The lower school club investigated craters with flour, cocoa
and ball bearings.
October 2005
The lower school club found
out about their 'star sign' constellation and made a keep-sake
constellation card to help them recognise it in
the sky. They also found out about the stars and other objects
in their constellation.
The sixth form learn to use the East of England Science Learning Centre's
portable planetarium. They
presented their first external show of the
'North and South in the Celestial Sphere' to 40 children and parents at the
City of Norwich School.
form
September 2005
Sixth former Rob Perry wins
an all expenses paid two week trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Read his prize winning 'A Mission to Mars'
project. Go Rob!
August 2005
  
News doesn't get much bigger than this! We go to South Africa and work with the scientists at the
Southern African Large Telescope and teach astronomy to over 500 children
in township schools. Find out more in our North and South section.
June 2005
A year on from the Venus
Transit and it's another clear-blue-sky-day. The Hydrogen alpha
telescope attracted a steady stream of interested students.
There were a few nice sunspots and some "small" prominences to see.
May 2005
The remaining Our Star 2
equipment has arrived. Some members had a go at using the
emission tubes and spectrometers during our regular Wednesday lunchtime
meeting.
The telescope bought with a
grant from the NASA After Schools Astronomy Clubs also arrived and the 6th
form members assembled it. That was quite a job as it has computer
directed capability and the electronics had to be installed. It
is a 6 inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian
mount. We have named it the 'Hubble Ground Telescope' - HGT for short. Rory has
taken the scope home to do the initial trials.
Rory and Anton assemble the HGT
April 2005
Space Observatories in
School was officially launched at the National Astronomy Meeting at Birmingham University on the 8th. The resource
was very well received by an enthusiastic
audience of scientists and educators including SOS scientists Helen Mason and Danielle Bewsher.
Mr Cripps navigates
the SOS website in front of the NAM audience
March 2005
Members of the 6th Form club
took two meeting with the lower school members this month.
Peter, Mathew and Alex gave a talk about the Cassini-Huygens
mission, then the pupils made models of the
spacecraft. They also held a quiz with 'Milky Way' chocolate
bars as prizes.
Stuart, Anton and Laura's
talk was about meteorites. Pupils were able to look at a real
Martian meteorite under a microscope as well as shards form a Nickel-Iron
meteorite.
February 2005
New pages on the site - Poetry Corner and Flying around the Moon
Great news! The Royal
Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 has given us a £7000 grant towards
our 'North and South in the Celestial Sphere' project. 10 sixth form
astronomers will be off to South Africa this summer to work with scientists
at the new Southern African Large Telescope and students at SA high schools
on space science projects. Click here for more
details.
January 2005
New website name for a new
year. It's a bit snappier than using the name of the club.
With 'Our Star' and 'Space Observatories in School ' we needed something
that our international friends could remember.
December 2004
Great news as the Royal
Society funds a second year of Our Star * activities with our
partner scientist, Helen Mason. The £2500 grant will be used to
purchase spectroscopy equipment and a binocular viewer for our hydrogen
alpha telescope. In 2005 we will be concentrating on developing ways to use
spectroscopy in the classroom and linking it to how scientists use the
technique in their work. Spectroscopy can open a stained glass window into
atoms. Elements leave their fingerprints in everything from streetlights to
sunlight. Hunting down the culprits can be exciting. Most people
think Bunsen invented his burner to boil water, and Helium just makes you
talk like a duck. With ‘Our Star 2’ we aim to change all that!
The East of England Science
Centre (EESLC) lend us their new £12K
planetarium. With a 5m diameter inflatable dome and an
impressive projection device we are looking forward to some exciting
presentations. As the Norfolk satellite centre for the EESLC, we
are going to help train teachers from other schools to use the planetarium.
November 2004
Nine sixth formers and Helen
Mason presented a space science experience to 120 year 6 children at Toftwood Junior School. They found out lots
about the International Space Station including personal experience of how
space walking astronauts tighten nuts and go to the toilet (we had a couple
of accidents with that one - we would like to apologise
to the two pupils who got wet heads)! They found out how
Helen uses the SOHO space observatory to make images of
the Sun in ultraviolet radiation. Then it was time to experiment
with UV sensitive sun beads to find out how we can protect ourselves from
harmful UV. Finally the children had a chance to be
creative and write a science poem about an image captured by the Hubble
Space Telescope.
October 2004
Our Royal Society partner
scientist, Dr Helen Mason from Cambridge University, visited us and gave a talk about
using spectroscopy to study the Sun. NASA invited us to join
their new 'National After School Astronomy Club ' and we become their first
international member.
August 2004
Mr Cripps visited the Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore and Goddard Space Flight Centre Washington
to work with scientists on new Educational materials.
July 2004
The Royal Society exhibit was a massive success! 6 sixth
formers and Mr Cripps spent a week in London as guests of the RS. We were
joined on the stand by our partner Scientist, Dr Helen Mason.
We hosted over 4,000 people at the exhibit including members of the public,
students, leading scientist and royalty. HRH The Prince of Wales made a special
visit and spent over 10 minutes with us
learning about our work and finding out about the Sun using our hands-on
activities.
June 2004
The 8th on June saw our most
successful enterprise yet - a live webcast of the
Venus transit.
We launch the development of
a new project with Taverham High School - 'Space Telescopes in School' -
with the news of a £2500 grant from the Particle Physics and Astronomy
Research Council (PPARC)..
April 2004
Students are starting to get
great images of the Sun and we post them on the web. The
European Southern Observatory have posted one of
Jack's and some images of Venus by Mr
Cripps. Click here to see them.
March 2004
Amazing news! We have been
invited to be the only school exhibitor at the Royal Society's Summer
Exhibition in July. There are only 25 exhibit spaces which universities and other research institutes hotly
competed for. We will be showcasing 'Our Star*' which is our Royal
Society sponsored partnership project with Helen Mason of the Department of
Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University.
Some students will be staying in London for the week long exhibition whilst
others will be joining us for days. We will have the opportunity of
explaining our work to the public, visiting sixth formers, educators,
captains of industry, politicians and the Fellows of the Royal Society -
the most accomplished scientists in the country.
February 2004
We start the Our Star*
visits to primary schools. Of course it rains each day but we lend the schools a Sunspotter
so that they can see the Sun for themselves when it eventually comes
out.
January 2004
We started the year by
making cardboard rockets and launching them with a NASA designed compressed
air system. We plan to run a series of experiments finding out
the relationship between the different variables. For example
the effect of launch pressure and vehicle mass on distance flown.
November 2003
A new challenge is on the 'Shooting the International Space Station' page. The Site Index page has been restructured to help you find
things. New pages have been added to help with physics homeworks.
10 students with Mr Cripps and Mr Horsfield met and listened to talks by two members of
the Russian space programme, Cosmonaut
Alexander Volkov and Scientist Dr. Alexander Martynov. We heard fascinating
personal accounts of space travel and future plans for manned space
flights. A member of the audience asked what was
the Russian's opinion of the "Moon landing hoax
theory". The Russians said simply that "
The Americans made a fantastic achievement. It really
happened."
October 2003
October was a fabulous month
for sun activity. It gave a full workout for the equipment and
there is now an improved 'Shooting the Sun' page
to help you get your own shots of activity on 'Our Star'.
 
The nights are drawing in,
so members can get some observing done before they go to bed. Planet
watchers can view Mars in the evening or Saturn and Jupiter in the early
morning. New 'Aliens' page added to the website.
September 2003
Michael and Nathanael came back from their week at Leicester University's Space School full of enthusiasm and gave an hilarious, illustrated talk to the club. Our
thanks go to the Dereham Lions and Dereham Rotary Club for sponsoring them.
Loads of new members from
year 7 and the 6th form have joined. Meeting topics this month
included space art and the optics of telescopes. A GCSE
astronomy classes got underway after school at the College with over a
dozen keen students from years 10, 11,12 and 13
attending. We aim to cover the whole of the syllabus in just 30
'turbo-charged' sessions.
July 2003
Dr Helen Mason visits
us. Our partner scientist from the University of Cambridge is a World
Leader in Solar physics. Dr Mason gave
an interactive talk about careers in science and technology, explaining her
own work and career. We restricted entrance to girls
only. Dr Mason then spent the rest of the day working with members of
the Astronomy Club. The clouds finally parted just before she left,
so Dr Mason was able to observe the Sun using the Our Star*
telescopes. She was very surprised with the high level of detail that
they revealed.
Dr Mason was also impressed
with Alex's first images. She explained how the S shaped, pale area
around the sunspot indicated that a flare was about to explode out of the
Sun.
June 2003
In an Astronomy Club meeting, we start a new project about 'Creating Jupiter' in the lab.
All of year 8 had a chance of hands-on rocket science for a day.
Mr Cripps returned from NASA training
at Kennedy Space Centre laden with posters and assorted space science
goodies. A poster of him wearing an Apollo flight suit is used
around school to publicise the ever expanding
website.
Our solar telescopes arrive and with them the
clouds. Just before this weeks web update we manage to get
first light with the telescopes. Pics on
the Our Star*
Gallery.
At an after school meeting members helped to
develop a lesson on rocket fuel. This was zinc and
sulfur just after it ignited. If we splattered your car with a
mixture of vinegar and indigestion tablets, we're sorry!
May 2003
The inventor of the long exposure webcam mod, Steve Chambers, visited us and gave a talk to the club about his
invention. 6th Form club member Willem, who
has studied A2 electronics and physics, will be operating on one of our
webcams. He will be assisted by fellow 6th former Jody, who has only
studied physics and claims no understanding of electronics. If
the patient dies, Steve has agreed to have the body sent to him in a jiffy
bag for an attempt at resurrection.
Steve Chambers show club members just how
tiny a webcam CCD is!
The Mercury transit of the Sun on the 7th was revealed in all
its glory on a sunny morning to our ETX70 scopes equipped with white light
filters. Unfortunately we didn't have our Sunspotters
or Maxscope as the importers were waiting for
stock from the USA. However we managed to grab some images.
A new page about how
to make craters
was posted after a very messy club meeting.
In the wee hours of Saturday 31st Tom B snaps a pic of the solar eclipse from Norfolk.
April 2003
We start the month with the great news of a £2500 partnership
grant for the Our Star* project from the Royal
Society. We hope to have the equipment after Easter and start
training members to use it. GCSE Science coursework
investigations
in astronomy become available for trial by club members. Lots of new
pages are added about space science, with links to help students access
related websites.
March 2003
New style website published with lots of new features.
For students, there are projects to do, details of books (and DVDs soon) in
the library, guidance on capturing images using a range of instruments and
lots of material to help you prepare for the Our
Star*
project. Some students have started to produce their own
pages containing exciting images that they have captured. There
are also details of Mr Cripps' forthcoming visit to NASA.
For students and teachers in other schools, we have given a report on the Home Astronomical Project to help you set up your own
projects.
Bob Greef of the Breckland
Astronomical Society came to school to show his portable radio telescope
and talk to members about how to make and use their own. We
plan to make two and use them to observe Jupiter and the Sun.
February 2003
Our Star* project launched with an application to the Royal
Society for a grant of £2500. We join with the 'Premier
Division' of science when Dr. Helen Mason, Assistant Director of Research
at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and
Theoretical Physics, agrees to become our partner scientist. Helen is a
world leader in solar physics research, working with NASA, ESA and other institutions on SOHO and
the next generation SOLARB space missions.
Students start to use the white light filters with the ETX70s
The Nikon digital camera is pronounced faulty by Jessops - we all thought it was us being incompetent!
January 2003
Mr. Cripps gets awarded a week -long teacher training
placement at Kennedy Space Centre for May. The local paper
headlines 'Teacher to join space programme'.
A pupil who only read the headline asked Mr
Cripps for his autograph. "If you're going to be an
astronaut, who's going to teach us now?" he warbled.
Bless.
April's star streak photos get developed. She suffers
from light pollution but still gets recognisable
results. We spotted Orion easily. With a bit of
processing, April should be able to reveal lots of information in the
pictures.
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