Wellington Astronomical Society is an incorporated society and registered charity for promoting astronomy in and around the Wellington region.
Upcoming Events
Our latest events are always in the Events section of our Facebook Page. (It’s public, so you don’t need to be a Facebook user to see it)
June Monthly Meeting
When: Tuesday 3rd June at 7:30 pm
Where: SpacePlace, 40 Salamanca Road, Kelburn
This meeting is also available on Zoom. Meeting ID 868 3785 7650: Passcode: 155311
Subject: Reminiscences of a Scientific Officer at the Carter Observatory in the1970s
Presenter: Robert Gibb
Whilst at the Carter, Robert did fieldwork in the Hawkdun and Black Birch Ranges, but also took tea with the Astronomer Royal (Sir Martin Ryle, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974) at Herstmonceaux Castle. In terms of observing technology, Robert’s time at the Carter spanned the end of glass plates and the dawn of digital, with single-pixel photon-counting sensors.
Robert Gibb completed an MSc in Physics and Astronomy at Victoria University, before going on to a distinguished career in informatics and geospatial sciences. Most recently, he was Research Associate and Senior Scientist at Landcare Research, where he led multi-disciplinary teams and managed significant New Zealand geospatial data holdings. He was co-Chair of the Discrete Global Grid Systems Scientific Working Group at the Open Geospatial Consortium and worked on key standards in geospatial information. He was lead for ISO TC211 19170. He is also a keen amateur astronomer and photographer.
Note that you don’t need to be a WAS member to attend our meetings. All are welcome, so come along and see what we are about.
Dark sky observing
WAS Astrophotography Group / Dark Sky Observing
When: Saturday the 31st of May 6:30 pm onwards. Weather permitting.
Where: Star Field, John Whitby’s dark sky site in the southern Wairarapa
New Moon is on 27 May.
‘Star Field is at the heart of the newly accredited Wairarapa Dark Sky Reserve, the second dark sky reserve in Aotearoa NZ. (The first is the Aoraki/Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve in the South Island.)
If you’ve never seen the night sky from a dark-sky site before, this will be unforgettable. Antony will give you a tour of the sky with his laser pointer before we get on the telescopes. There is also a lot of expertise available for anyone wanting to photograph the night sky.
How to register: Please email Antony at events@was.org.nz if you are planning to go. (If you have never been to Star Field before, you will need to contact Antony to get the directions for finding it.)
If you’d like to bring a tent and stay the night, please check in with Antony first.
What to bring:
Warm clothes, as it gets pretty cold at night, beanie, gloves etc.
Snacks if you want.
Warm drinks are provided.
A warm room is available if you need warming up.
A flush toilet is available on-site.
For astrophotography, bring:
A DSLR or mirrorless camera,
A wide angle lens (preferably),
A tripod to fix the camera to.
Be careful with car headlights when you arrive. With people taking photos, please keep lights to a minimum (use red lights if you can), especially car headlights (use parking lights).
For further details or cancellations contact Antony (021 253 4979). This event will be updated on the WAS Facebook page by the afternoon of the day of the event if the weather forecast is not looking good.
For those just interested in Deep Sky observing, telescopes will be provided unless you want to bring your own.
NOTE: This is a free members-only Society event. (To join Wellington Astronomical Society: here’s the link.) Members are welcome to bring friends but please let us know. Non-members pay $10 each to attend
The Royal Society and the International Science Festival present
When: Wednesday 18th June at 6-7 pm
Where: Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi, 11 Turnbull Street, Thorndon
Subject: What is it like to be an astronomer at NASA?
Presenter: Dr Michelle Thaller
Dr Michelle Thaller has 28 years of experience at NASA, working most recently at NASA’s largest base, the Goddard Space Flight Center in Washington DC. She was a scientist in NASA’s famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has launched missions to every planet in our solar system, including the Voyager probes, Mars rovers, and the Cassini mission.
Many people will have heard her on live NASA broadcasts, such as the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest telescope in space. She has appeared regularly on television, radio, and online to demystify science. Her work includes The Universe on the History Channel, How the Universe Works on the Science Channel, and the Orbital Path podcast.
Cretney Observatory News
Above: One of the latest Cretney images, IC434, taken by Curator of Instruments Matt Balkham. 12.5 hours of HaRGB. If you’d like to see the version with stars, here’s the link.
Keen to use the Cretney? We now have instructional videos on our YouTube channel. Below is a link to Matt’s video explaining how to select targets to image using the Cretney. He writes:
‘In this 2-part video I share key info on how I have been finding candidate targets to image with the Wellington Astronomical Society Cretney Observatory. (Part 1 here https://youtu.be/xWUeVwW9JqQ?si=HGaqypx3XG9R1MIs)
‘We hoping that members will use this info to identify object that they want us to target. Check that our equipment is suitable and understand the best time of the night and the year to capture data of that target.
‘Key info if you are keen is 1520mm focal length and QHY600 full frame camera with a field of view of 1.3×0.9 degrees. https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/
‘Framing and transit timing here https://telescopius.com/
Coming up this year:
- A workshop on astrophotography, and the formation of an active astro group within WAS
- A workshop or two on how to use the Cretney, with manual
- A workshop on how to process Cretney data to produce beautiful images like the one above, and
- Whatever else you tell us that you need to get the benefit of your WAS membership and access to the Cretney Observatory. Talk to Matt Balkham, Anne French, or any Council member about your ideas.
Royal Society Affiliation
Wellington Astronomical Society is an affiliate organisation of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. We’re on the RSNZ website here. If you are not already a member, keep an eye on the RSNZ website for science news and events.
RASNZ newsletter
The latest RASNZ newsletter is here for your reading pleasure.
Get involved with WAS
Is there anything more awe inspiring than looking through a telescope to see the wonders of Matariki, or showing a child the rings of Saturn?
It’s been a bit hard over the last few years, especially if you don’t have access to a telescope of your own.
Running outreach events, holding viewing sessions, teaching telescope skills, running observatories (and mowing their lawns), arranging astrophotography nights, writing funding applications, managing social media accounts, finding guest speakers, making the tech work at our meetings… it all takes time! So this year your Council has decided we want to have more fun and spend more time with our members.
Very shortly we will send out a survey form to members, asking how you would like to be involved in your society and what you are most interested in doing.
After we have your response, a Council member will be in touch. There are three things we can guarantee:
• We won’t ask for more time than you can give
• You don’t have to know about astronomy to get involved
• It will be loads of fun!
Gifford Observatory Refurbishment and News
A few days ago, we had a break-in at the Gifford Observatory. Some schoolboys stole various cameras (by ripping the cables out), damaged the guttering and the fence, knocked a hole in the door, and tried to burn the place down. Fortunately their actions were caught on our CCTV cameras, and they have been referred, via Wellington College, to the Police. A substantial insurance claim is in progress. This is a set-back, but the working bee at the Gifford will be going ahead on Sunday 7 April. Contact Andrew Fuller if you’d like to lend a hand
The Gifford Observatory was originally established in 1911 on the slopes of Mt Victoria, where Wellington East Girls’ College is located now. It was moved to its present location, above Wellington College, in 1924. It was named in honour of its original founder and benefactor, A.C. Gifford, also known as Uncle Charlie.
The Observatory hosted a Zeiss 130 mm refractor and was operated by Wellington College students until the late 1970s, by which time adult support for its continued operation had faded out. The dome eventually rotted and collapsed, leaving only the shell of the building.
In 1999, the Gifford Observatory Trust was formed. Its aim was to ‘restore, maintain and operate the original Gifford Observatory to establish a usable astronomical observatory for the recreational use of young astronomers in the Wellington region’.
The Trust refurbished the building with a new 4.5-metre dome and reinstalled the 130 mm refractor. The Gifford was reopened on 25 March 2002 by one of its former student users (and New Zealand’s most distinguished rocket scientist), Dr William Pickering ONZ, KBE. (see below).
In 2022, the Trust was dissolved, but not before it had transferred the ownership (and upkeep) of the Observatory to the Wellington Astronomical Society. We are now renovating the observatory with the aim of making it fully automated.
Interested in helping Andrew with the refurbishment of the Gifford? Have a chat with him at the monthly meeting or contact him at adfuller@gmail.com.
William Hayward (Bill) Pickering (1910–2004) was a frequent user of the Gifford Observatory during his school days at Wellington College. He finished his BSc at Caltech and completed his PhD in Physics there in 1936. A few years later, in 1944, he went to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. On 31 January 1958, his group at JPL launched Explorer I on a Jupiter-C rocket from Cape Canaveral, less than four months after the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik. It’s a tale of innovation on the surface, but it’s worth remembering that rockets for space could not have been developed so fast without the rocketry programme of the Second World War – as the Jupiter-C’s history shows. It was designed, eerily, by Wernher von Braun, who worked on the V-2 rocket for Nazi Germany’s weapons programme during the war. Von Braun was spirited off to the US afterwards, as part of the innocuous-sounding Operation Paperclip. Similarly, the R-7 rocket that launched Sputnik 1 was originally developed as an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, i.e. an offensive weapon capable of travelling thousands of miles.
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