I'm using the blog as a place to assemble some bits and pieces of information about the Astronomy weekend being offered by the Centre for Open Studies, in cooperation with the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. On the weekend of 13 - 15 November 2015, Douglas Cooper and I will be tutors for a weekend titled, Looking at the night sky. Here's the course description from the Open Studies course programme (or at least the one we used last year):
We will introduce the night sky, stars and constellations, telescope usage and first steps in astrophotography. Our venue will be Loch Ossian Youth Hostel, a beautiful setting distinguished by its remoteness and consequent dark, star-filled skies. Workshops, computer activities and games in the event of unsuitable weather. See Centre for Open Studies website for details.
So, a weekend introducing Astronomy, in a dark, remote location. Here are some more details:
Where is this place? Loch Ossian is at the eastern end of Rannoch Moor, marked on this map. No public road goes there. Unless you're up for a long walk from the nearest public road (which would be lovely, for those who enjoy such challenges), you get there by train to Corrour station. Corrour station is on the West Highland line, the train line that goes from Glasgow (Queen Street station) to Oban or Fort William. People coming from further south might prefer to leave a car at Rannoch or Bridge of Orchy stations, from where Corrour is just a couple of stops along the West Highland line. The Youth Hostel is about 20 minutes' leisurely walk along a "well made track" from the train station. We'd definitely encourage people to bring their own equipment - telescopes, binoculars, cameras - but you should assume you will need to bring it on the train and then in your rucksack along that well-made track.
There are many more luxurious places one could stay in the Highlands. The sheer remoteness of Loch Ossian will be an additional pull for some.
We're going to the Highlands of Scotland in November. Let's be honest: the weather could be awful! No telescope that you look through with your eyes can compensate for rain and clouds. Even if this happens we'll still be able to discuss the night sky, some modern ideas of planets, stars and the Universe, and telescopes and astrophotography in a remote and beautiful setting.
More on Scottish dark skies here; of course there is now a Dark Sky Park in Galloway, and the island of Coll has been designated a Dark Sky Island.
Youth hostel The SYHA website has more information on Loch Ossian Youth Hostel. You can see that it is comfortable and well managed with due attention to sustainability in a potentially fragile location. We should mention that accommodation will be in its two shared dormitories. No single rooms - sorry. We will supply more hostel information to anybody who signs up.
By the way, just in case there's any doubt, you don't need to be a "youth" to use a Youth Hostel!
What will we be doing? On the Friday and Saturday nights we will look at the sky, clouds allowing, with our own eyes and with telescopes and binoculars, and take some first steps at astrophotography. Douglas and I will help you in this. As we look we can discuss the nature of what we're seeing - some of the best conversations I've ever had about stars, planets, galaxies etc. have been as a wee group of people viewed them in a telescope. If the night is clear we'll keep going until people run out of steam, and start slow and lazy the next morning if necessary.
Bring many layers of warm clothing. Douglas and I will have a couple of telescopes with us so don't worry if you don't have anything appropriate yourself, or if it's too difficult to bring it to Loch Ossian.
During the day we'll look at a variety of telescopes and discuss their pros and cons, talk about what's in the night sky just now, how the sky changes, how to plan an observing session, and have a couple of wee talks on modern astrophysics, the natures of the objects we can see, straying a little into big or exotic topics like black holes and the Big Bang. We'll try to respond to suggestions and questions. We'll also have a close look at our very own nearest star, the Sun - "daytime astronomy" (My own research is on the Sun. Solar astronomers talk about "night-time Astronomy", meaning the whole of the rest of the subject!). We'll bring a couple of ideas for astronomical games, etc., for light relief - especially if the clouds do not cooperate and we're stuck inside in the evenings.
Fee Last year the fee was £130. It might go up a bit; we'll have it fixed exactly very soon - before the brochure goes to press this year. The fee includes accommodation, all meals and tuition. You are responsible for getting there yourself. There are enrolment instructions at this link but you can't enrol yet - soon! Bookmark our website, maybe keep an eye on our Twitter or Facebook.
Tutors I work in the Centre for Open Studies, University of Glasgow. Among other duties I teach and organise courses for the public in Astronomy and Physics. I've been doing this job for a long time so I've heard lots of questions and worked out my answers to them. I believe I can speak understandably with all sorts of different people and you can maybe judge that from some of the other posts on this blog (this one, for example, or this one).
Douglas Cooper is a mainstay of several Central Scotland Astronomical societies and a skilled astrophotographer (i.e. photographer of objects in the night sky). You can see some examples of his images here and here. Some of his images of the aurora and noctilucent clouds have been featured on spaceweather.com.
I hope this sounds interesting and indeed exciting and that we might meet at Loch Ossian. I might update and refine this posting over the next couple of weeks. If you have pressing questions you can always email me.
Credit for the light pollution map: P. Cinzano, F. Falchi (University of Padova), C. D. Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder). Copyright Royal Astronomical Society. Reproduced from the Monthly Notices of the RAS by permission of Blackwell Science.
