Wondering about wonders of the night sky

I said to my 5 year old son a few clear nights ago, "Get your coat and shoes on and come and see Jupiter through the telescope." This was met with some enthusiasm.

It was a cold, clear night and Jupiter and the Moon were to the south and I set the small scope up on my driveway with my son prancing around me happily. I found the Moon first so I could align the finderscope and then after a little fiddling with screws, I called him to have a look. He continued prancing for another minute or so and then came over.

"Oooh! That's very bright" he said. The moon is very bright through even a small telescope.

Then I swiveled it onto Jupiter. I could see the disk, faint banding and three of the four Galilean moons. I then called my son over again and he looked through the eyepiece.

"But that's rubbish!" he said.

Clearly he expected this

 

but got this

He listened quietly to my attempt at explaining what he was seeing, but seemed unconvinced. I hope my few words lodged somewhere in his mind.

The next night I was doing something similar with a telescope with an evening class at Glasgow University observatory. There was much less prancing around. They were very impressed by the Moon, pleased and interested at Jupiter but disappointed by the smudge that was the Andromeda galaxy. Of course, when you explain that the smudge is a galaxy of several hundred billion stars and that the light they just saw left those stars over 2 million years ago, then that smudge takes on a new significance.

We were also treated to a meteor, a couple of satellites and for a moment we were all perplexed by a strange, flickering orange "star" drifting across the sky to the north. After a bit of theorising, we concluded it was a chinese lantern, which we then confirmed with binoculars and a fleeting glimpse as it zipped across the telescope's field of view.

The night sky is beautiful to the naked eye, but it has an even deeper beauty that can only be appreciated with your mind.

More on Ancient Egypt in Glasgow

Since writing, I've run my hands-on session with my Art students (which went wonderfully well - lots of good photos taken of them looking at objects with such enthusiasm and reverence), and I've run another session where I took my students to the Hunterian Stores - a dark corner of Glasgow on Thurso Street - to look at facsimile paintings of scenes from Theban tombs made by the Rev Colin Campbell, a Glasgow University alumnus, at the turn of the 20th century.

The idea for the Campbell session was to unroll (in the manner of 19th century Egyptologists unwrapping mummies!) the paintings - some of which are over 3m long - and to re-create a tomb space for my students, with all its paintings intact in glorious colour. Of course, we only managed to look at 3 paintings - the time absolutely flew! We got so carried away picking out details and pondering the reasons behind them (e.g. why show a sleepy servant dozing under a tree when everyone around him is busily at work enduring provision for the tomb owner's afterlife?)!

I hope these kinds of sessions will just be the beginning. Sally-Anne Coupar, who curates the Egyptian collection in the Hunterian, has been absolutely wonderful. She firmly believes that the collection should be used to inspire students, which means giving them access rather than having objects hidden away. Another session on the Campbell paintings is planned for the Egyptology Scotland society, who've very generously contributed towards the Campbell paintings conservation fund.

Of course, nothing beats the experience of perusing scenes on tomb walls when you're actually in Egypt in the actual tomb... Although, there's something to be said for being able to get up close and personal with the scenes without feeling that you're slowly melting in the Egyptian dry heat (usually when I'm in the country, it's September, so it's in the mid to high thirties in Luxor...).

These sessions are supposed to inspire my students. They certainly do. Funny thing is - they inspire me too, which is especially important during these turbulent times for teachers.

Holding on to Ancient Egypt

Yesterday, after a (non-departmental) meeting, I introduced several colleagues (formerly of DACE) to a collection of ancient Egyptian objects very kindly loaned out to me for teaching by Sally-Anne Coupar at the Hunterian Museum. Everyone seemed to enjoy the experience of being able to hold something old and a little bit precious in their hands.

The pieces are mostly amulets that would have been worn around the neck or held in the hand both during life and then accompanied their owner into their tomb after death. They're not the grandest of ancient Egyptian objects to come down to us, but there's something special about holding onto something that meant a lot to a person who lived 3,000 years ago. Some of the amulets are worn almost smooth by the amount of handling they received from their ancient owners.

Today, I'm putting the objects to work again in my Ancient Egyptian Art class. I've been dropping tantalising hints about the surprise that I've planned for them this week, but I haven't told them exactly what they're in store for. I'm hoping that they'll enjoy it. They'll also have the chance to update the Hunterian records, which are patchy. Their observations about the objects will hopefully enrich the museum's catalogue and make it a little more accurate (one amulet with wonderfully rounded leonine ears is listed as a figure of the god Horus, who was falcon-headed!).

Thanks also to Mike Keen, who spent some time with me identifying the materials of some amuletic bracelets and necklaces among the collection. Only in a (insert inoffensive synonym for 'department') that brings together Egyptologists and geologists could such a confab happen easily!

I'll report back on what my students made of their chance to hold a bit of ancient Egypt in their hands...

DACE Memorial Blog

Since 1 August 2010, nothing in Glasgow University goes by the name of "Department". So DACE no longer exists and there is no named unit in the University that combines people from several disciplines to make academic ideas accessible outside the academy. But we're all still here (more or less), working on our various programmes, setting up and teaching courses for the public, having all sorts of conversations as we have in the past. For now, something like DACE still exists, within the School of Education, although it no longer corresponds to a structural unit post-restructuring.

I thought it would be nice to note our continued existence, albeit in the virtual, ghostly form of this blog, and celebrate the unique mix of individuals and disciplines that produces the programmes. From time to time any of us might share some ideas or facts that get us excited from our own disciplines, or comment on stories in the news. I always feel that when two of us get together we wind up having such interesting conversations, completely different from those we'd have with people from our own disciplines (in my own case, recently, on the Moon landings; climate change; environmental catastrophes and religious visions in history; the relationship between words and things). Now we'll do some of this online, in a public space where others can see and join in. We might muse on adult education, universities, education in society, our own disciplines in broader contexts. We've had such interesting experiences in the past few months, we've been forced to think about such topics. Or we might share non-professional interests, blunder into others' territories, generate generic, low-content internet verbiage, etc. 

There's no schedule; we'll add things as we feel like it. There are enough of us that it should be easy to keep alive and busy, without relying too much on any one of us. Quite possibly there's no single person who will enjoy all of it, but we can hope that you'll find most of it interesting and that we'll keep the spirit of DACE alive in this new form, alongside the continued Courses for Adults programmes, etc.. Hope to see you here!