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News: IYA2009 Launch
IYA2009 Launch
Due to forecast heavy snow this event has been cancelled.
The Astronomy Centre's first event to mark UNESCO's International Year of Astronomy 2009 will take place on Saturday 24 January 2009.
Roger O'Brien of the Open University will present a talk called "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star", which will be followed by a hands-on observing session.
During this, visitors will be introduced to views of the sky through a wide range of instruments, guided by experienced members of local societies.
After a cloudy and cold morning the dome team did witness the Lunar/Mars bypass.
Through small clear patches of the low thick cloud the event was seen for short intervals through high wispy cloud.
Posted by andy_sieroslawski on Monday, December 24 @ 03:45:00 GMT (3813 reads)
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News: Comet 17/P Holmes
At the end of October 2007, comet 17/P Holmes unexpectedly brightened by many magnitudes (equivalent to about a million times!). It became a naked-eye object and was spectacular through binoculars - let alone telescopes.
Astronomy Centre members made observations of Holmes whenever the weather permitted. Various images were also captured and some of these are in the Photo Gallery.
Posted by dave_wylie on Monday, November 26 @ 16:46:41 GMT (3614 reads)
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News: Site preparing to go live
Here we go, the last few days of tickling the site up before we take it live for everyone.
Stay Tuned
Posted by steve_taylor on Friday, November 10 @ 23:00:00 GMT (1126 reads)
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News: Internet Link Up and Running
The repaired Internet link has been stable for a few weeks now since a new ADSL router was installed. The fault with the system was tracked down to a small crater blown in one of the ADSL chips in the old router - presumably due to a nearby lightning strike in the storm!
A new Web Camera server has now been installed, running Debian Gnu/Linux 3.1, which seems to be handling the four-port video capture card much better than the previous Micros**t box. This should allow us to provide much more reliable "Live" astro-image feeds.
Posted by neil_perry on Monday, August 15 @ 15:17:55 BST (1009 reads)
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News: ADSL Down
Unfortunatly the ADSL Internet link has been down since 19th June.
The line and filters have been checked but there is no line sync.
The next step would be to test a new ADSL router in the line to check that the router is not damaged. (It went ofline during a lightning storm).
I hope to be able to get to the botom of the problem soon.
Neil
Posted by neil_perry on Monday, July 04 @ 14:14:01 BST (1023 reads)
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News: First Live Telescope pictures Online
Well Finally after upgrading the webcam PC we have managed to caputure live telescope pictures and feed them to this site.
The first Good capture was of the moon.
We hope to be able to increase the quality and rate of capture but this would require a more powerful PC ;)
Thanks all round
Neil
Posted by neil_perry on Sunday, June 19 @ 01:00:00 BST (5244 reads)
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News: Dr Patrick Moore lectured in Rochdale tonight 17th November
He gave a very fine lecture and a fantastic plug for the Astronomy Centre too. He was delighted to see our progress and looked forward to hearing our reports on the mirror in the next few months. Many thanks to Dr. Moore, his management and the theatre management for allowing us to take part in this very well attended event.
Posted by neil_perry on Thursday, November 16 @ 23:00:00 GMT (709 reads)
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