Category Archives: Education

Space Camp Joy

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This blog was  originaly posted shortly after Easter 2019 –  This year sadly my Easter Space Camp for children can not take place due to COVID 19.  Ironicly the children are not in school for the same reason and Space Camp would have been a very useful event for both kids and parents struggling in this crisis. Stay safe, hope you enjoy this rerun. Children spinning their little handmade Saturn models with joy !! At Easter  I ran a small space camp for children. It was over three mornings in Louisburgh Co Mayo.The venue was Books at One, the local community bookshop.  We packed a lot of things into the three mornings, in fact, I had too much planned. Better too much than too little in my experience. Space Camp joy abounded ! Day 1 Space Camp We built paper rockets that we blew into space (in the room). I have a  box of interesting forever goodies. These are intended … Continue reading →

On Solar Spectrum and Humans

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On Solar Spectrum and Humans I’ve always been fascinated by the links between the solar spectrum and humans. It is a visual thing coupled with some interesting interactions. The elements found in our sun are also found in us and all living things, Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur and Phosphorus. We eat the food produced by the sun and the Earth working together. Phototropism  pulls plants up towards the sunlight, likewise, geotropism pulls the roots into the ground via gravity. We, humans, are ultimately bound by the suns energy. Therefore we are wrapped up in it for all our lives in many ways. This idea has informed several paintings of which the above is one. Human Spectrum Painting I wanted to do a painting that expressed that interaction in some way. The spectra of our sun and other stars tells us what those stars are made from. The ingredients being different for each star, as are fingerprints and DNA in … Continue reading →

Visit NASA’s Space Place YouTube Channel

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NASA’s Space Place just updated their YouTube channel so you have a one stop shop for over 100 NASA videos at home via thematic playlists. You can use this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/nasaspaceplace?app=desktop, or watch the videos in the gallery below. Launched in 1998, NASA Space Place’s mission is to inspire and enrich upper-elementary-aged kids’ learning of space and Earth science online through fun games, hands-on activities, informative articles and engaging short videos. With material in both English and Spanish and resources for parents and teachers, NASA Space Place has something for everyone. Visit the Space Place website: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ Follow the Space Place on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nasaspaceplace Follow the Space Place on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nasaspaceplace Space Place YouTube Channel: … Continue reading →

On Peace Stars and Rainbows

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Recently I came across this beautiful poem by Wendell Berry. Mr Berry is an award-winning American writer and poet. I found his poem inspiring and uplifting in these dark days. One line, in particular, stood out to me hence this blog on peace, stars and rainbows. “And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light” Stars In the daytime, the sun-facing side of our planet is saturated in light from our nearest star. Meanwhile, the night facing side is subject to the distant light of billions of stars. These stars of the night are invisible to us when the sun dominates our daytime lives. They become day-blind to us while they wait for the planet to rotate and bring their light in waiting to our eyes. Our day eliminates them from our vision and our minds. ( unless one of them goes supernova or there is a total solar eclipse available to us )   Rainbows Our sun … Continue reading →

Go Observe Copernicus

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  Nicolaus Copernicus was born in the city Torun, Poland in 1473.  After many decades of observation and study he came to write a book called ” On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres “. It was published in 1543 shortly after his death. This book was pivotal in the acceptance that the sun is in the centre of our solar system orbited by the planets. Copernicus made many contributions to astronomy, therefore a crater of massive proportions was named for him on the moons surface. Copernicus Crater June 2nd 2009 From memory I was tired when I started this drawing, it has been a busy day. Because I ended the session early I therefore  considered the drawing unfinished. However, looking back on it some details are worth noting. From my point of view, if I do not finish the sketch at the eyepiece it never gets finished at all. Someone suggested to me that I could finish it using photographic … Continue reading →

Betelgeuse Drama

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  Betelgeuse has always been eye-catching in the winter night sky. This star has for decades  appeared to my eye to be on the red side of orange. A warm colour in the darkness, very distinct. I am aware that is a variable star but observing variables, in general, has never been my thing. However, I am sure you know this red supergiant  has had a dramatic change in its normal manifestation. There is a Betelgeuse drama ongoing, it is very interesting at the moment. When I observed the change for myself on January 11th the first thing that came to my mind was that there must be something between us on Earth and the star. After all the star is 650 light-years away, that is a lot of space. It is also a lot of time because we are looking at Betelgeuse as it was multiple millions of years ago. The luminosity of the red super giant has altered … Continue reading →

Size and Distance Models

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Introduction My December blog (The Headless Angels and the Four Science Concepts) dealt with science concepts in general, and concluded with a brief discussion of size and distance models of the Solar System. Larry and I developed the models many years ago for use in teacher in-service training workshops. The updated activities described below are now being used for Girl Scout Adult Leadership Workshops under the auspices of a NASA-funded program, Reaching for the Stars: NASA Science for Girl Scouts. SIZE MODEL 1: The Diameters of the Planets Background: Planetary scientists sometimes use the Earth as a reference point in making measurements. For example, the distance between the Earth and the Sun is called an Astronomical Unit, or AU, and is used to describe distances in the Solar System. Another example is Earth’s atmospheric pressure (14.7 lb per square inch); it is referred to as one atmosphere (1 atm), and the atmospheric pressures of the other planets are sometimes expressed … Continue reading →

Buzz Aldrin

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This week Buzz Aldrin turned 90 years old !! The second man to walk on the moon on July 20th 1969. What a legacy, and an adventurous spirit he has. I was reminded of going to see him speak back in 2014 when he visited Ireland. The venue was The National Concert in Dublin, it was on November 18th. A very memorable occasion. The concert hall was packed to the rafters, the atmosphere was tangible. One of Irelands most loved broadcasters was going to interview Buzz. The interview, one of a series called Face to Face with Gay Byrne. The two men sat in comfortable armchairs close to each other. The chairs were angled towards the audience. As far as I know, the interview was not filmed but it may have been recorded. However, as yet I have not found any radio clips online. Colonel Aldrin is an extremely interesting man and he held the packed hall for over an … Continue reading →

Bones in Space – Solarblack

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Solar Orbiter In February 2020 an Irish company will showcase to the world its innovative use of burnt bone charcoal. ENBIO has developed a use for charred bone with its unique product Solarblack. This product will bring heatshields for spacecraft to another level. ESA’s Solar Orbiter is due to launch on February 5th. Bones in space – Solarblack high technology for the next decade. Solarblack The application of Solarblack to heatshields is for the thermal protection of spacecraft working in the harsh environs of space. Yes, the Solar Orbiter space probe will soon be on its way to study the sun. Its duty is to  inform us more fully about the origins of spaceweather. The mission will  to being a  manmade probe closer to our star than ever  before. The word Solarblack suggest bright and dark. The brightest thing you can think of i.e. the Sun and the darkest colour of all, pure black. This product is a Thermo optical … Continue reading →

NASA’s Eyes – Part 1: Eyes on the Solar System

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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series NASA's Eyes

With NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System, you can learn about the Earth, the solar system and beyond! You can fly alongside current spacecraft, take guided tours of historic space missions, travel to the planets, their moons, comets and asteroids. You can visualize and animate Earth climate data, and take virtual tours of exoplanets that have been discovered orbiting other stars! NASA’s Eyes is FREE for Windows and MAC, and is great for use in the classroom or at home! I use Eyes every week to create images for my “In the Sky” posts; in this post, I’ll cover the Eyes on the Solar System module of the Eyes app. When you launch the Eyes client app, you are presented with a splash screen showing the three Eyes modules; Eyes on the Solar System (middle) has two buttons: simple and advanced mode. Simple mode presents you with a very minimal user interface, and enters into a Kiosk-mode after a few … Continue reading →

Observing Asteroids at VATT, Part 2

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Last April, my post was about doing Citizen Science from the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT). This is a follow-up article about our latest observing run in early December 2019. I would like to thank Mark Trueblood and Robert Crawford who make our observing the success that it is. I would also like to thank the staff of VATT who are on call all hours of the night to help us out when we need help with the telescope and equipment. As I said in my previous article about observing from the VATT, our goal is to observe Near-Earth Asteroids that might, some time in the future, collide with the Earth. “These asteroids might become ‘lost’ because of the uncertainty in their orbits.” By reducing the uncertainty in the orbits of these asteroids, we hope to remove them from the list of asteroid impactors. This five-night observing run was an experiment: Could we observe asteroids that had been discovered only … Continue reading →

The Headless Angels and the Four Science Concepts

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Introduction While visiting York Minster in July, the docent leading our small group pointed out a configuration of angels above the entrance, six to the left of the door and six to the right. The angels were holding two round objects each, with their arms in different configurations. I whispered to Larry that it looked like they were doing semaphore. When our docent asked if any of us had any idea what the angels depicted, I gave him the same answer, semaphore. His jaw dropped and he asked if I could read semaphore. I could not, but as a long-time solver of cryptograms, it took just a moment or two to identify the five repeating symbols among the 12 angels. I would like to think that, given 10 minutes, a pencil, and some paper, I could have deciphered their message. Relating the Angels to Basic Science Concepts Since the National Science Education Standards were published back in the mid-1990s, we … Continue reading →