What is Good Neighbour Lighting?
Good Neighbour Lighting in Mississippi Mills is made possible by residents and shopkeepers who use shielded outdoor lighting. This ‘Good Neighbour’ shielding helps greatly to preserve the quality of the dark sky sites around the Mill of Kintail.
Note: Dates have now been set for 5 Fridays in May 2013 for Spring Astronomy. Stay tuned… for more details.
We are still posting the course notes for the 5 segments covering the basics: from Near to Far, from the Solar System to distant Quasars in ‘look-back time’… with plenty of observing exercises along the way…
The following downloads are available by clicking on the links:
1. Course notes – which will be periodically updated/edited as we prepare for the current seasonal offering. Lecture 1 is now available as a pdf. (See below)
2. Observing exercises. These are examples that show you how to find the object by using the techniques we learn about in the sessions.
- Planning your observations
- Finding your celestial target using the star-hopping technique.
- Recording your observations
- Using guides before during and after the observation
Lecture 1 Materials
Here is lecture 1 Download AstrocourseFallLecture1
Here is the comet movie http://millstone.typepad.com/files/garad2-2.avi
Here is the link to a year on earth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqzW97_47w&feature=relmfu
Here is a short segment on how to orient yourself in the celestial sphere: Download EquatorialCoords
Here is the DarkSky Campus video for the Night Sky Education in lecture 1 Download Dark Sky Campus
Lecture 2 Materials
Here is lecture 2: Download AstrocourseFall2012lec2
Here is a lecture on the Moon and First Quarter Lunar Observations:
Here are the 2 videos on the moon courtesy Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
Here are some sample Lunar Exercises
Lecture 3 Materials
Here is lecture 3 Download AstroCourseFallLecture3
Here is a link to the Astronomy Resource page:Night Sky Resource Material
Here are the course notes and observational exercises for the second half of the course which includes Star clouds and nebulae in the Milky Way, and galaxies beyond our Milky Way galaxy.
Lecture 4 Materials
Download AstroCourseFallLecture4
Here are 2 videos explaining the first two rungs of the distance ladder:
Cepheid Variables – Starlight Variations Tell us Distance
Lecture 5 Materials
Here are the course notes for Lecture 5
Download AstroCourseFallLecture5
To answer the question, can the southernmost point of Canada see the LMC…? See what objects are visible based on our geographical latitude
Download VisibleStarsAndLatitude
Observing Nebulae Clusters ObservingNebulaeClusters
Observing Galaxies Download ObservingGalaxies
For more detail on the M42 Great Orion Nebula download this movie:
Download OrionAnim, (which goes with the text in ObservingNebulaeClusters)
Public Astronomy Education:
For those of you who would like to know how to check and respond to popular mis-conceptions regarding astronomy, you have an advocate…
Dr. Phil Plait, a public educator on the topic of astronomy has created a virtual encyclopedia of astronomical errors, and is one of the most popular science blogs on the web, with thousands of fans eagerly reading it every day.