Welcome to the WAS website

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)

December Monthly Meeting

When: Tuesday 3rd December 19:30 pm
Where: Space Place
This meeting will not be available via zoom.

Subject: WAS Annual Christmas Party
Presenter: Don’t know, but there will be lots of pizza, cakes and other goodies plus a great quiz


This is our last meeting for 2024. We take a break during January. The next meeting will be Tuesday 7th of February 2025. Watch this space or our Facebook page closer to this date for further details.

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


Royal Society of New Zealand Wellington Branch, in association with the Wellington Astronomical Society and the Royal Society Te Apārangi, presents a free public lecture

Subject: Hydrogen for Rocket Propulsion

Presenter: Angela Krenn
Deputy Chief Architect and Surface Systems Principal Technologist,
NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate

When: Monday 2 December 2024 6.00 – 7.00 pm
Where: Royal Society Te Apārangi premises, 11 Turnbull St, Thorndon, Wellington

NASA pioneered the use of hydrogen for rocket propulsion systems and continues to push the envelope for its use today.  Beginning with the Saturn IV, continuing through the Space Shuttle Program, and still in use as part of the Space Launch System, liquid hydrogen has been an instrumental part of achieving NASA missions.  Standard practices for safe handling and operations have been developed through the many years of experience.  Even so, NASA has a bold vision for improved use of hydrogen into the future. 

Novel technologies to enhance ground storage of liquid hydrogen have been developed and implemented.  In parallel, numerous technologies are being developed to enable long-duration cryogenic fluid management in space.  Leveraging their rich history of hydrogen use, NASA also collaborates with industry and other government agencies with the goal of furthering hydrogen use in terrestrial transportation systems. 

Angela Krenn has over 20 years of experience at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and is currently supporting NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate as the Deputy Chief Architect. In this role, Angela develops strategies to ensure proper technology development and infusion. She has expertise in operations, design, analysis, research and technology development related to cryogenic systems for ground and space applications.

Angela also has experience with space architecture development, surface systems integration, and thermal management for moderate and high temperature applications. Angela has a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Physics from the University of Central Florida.


Dark sky observing

WAS Astrophotography Group / Dark Sky Observing

When: Saturday 30th November from 8:00pm onwards. Weather permitting.
Where: Star Field, John Whitby’s dark sky site in the southern Wairarapa

Star Party

This will be our last Dark Sky observing session for 2024. The new moon is on the 1st of December.

‘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.

Star field sign

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.)

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 WAS members-only evening.


Cretney Observatory News

Above: NGC 3324, an open cluster in Carina, NW of the Carina nebula (Matt Balkham)
The image above was created from 7 hours of HaOiiiRGB data from the C14 taken on Thursday 21 March. Matt writes: ‘There is a great James Webb version of this target online. It is interesting to see their field of view compared to ours. An interesting little white/blue reflection nebula I haven’t noticed before centre bottom.’ Full details here.

Our telescope has finally been repaired and returned from Italy. It has been reinstalled in the observatory and is currently undergoing testing to ensure the performance is as we expected.


Royal Society Affiliation

Wellington Astronomical Society is now confirmed as an affiliate organisation of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. We received the glad news in early July. 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.


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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