Reaching For The Stars

Observatory Opening

Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is keeper of the Vatican's collection of meteorites, has just unveiled a new telescope at our Observatory. Addressing the pupils, he said: “I hope your observations will shine brightly and inspire you in the years to come.”

During the opening ceremony, students also had the chance to talk live to a senior scientist at CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research in Geneva. Using a live video link from the school, Ardingly physics students asked CERN's Dr Mick Storr about progress with the work of Large Hadron Collider. Sixth former Ana Jackson said it was an amazing opportunity to find out the latest news about the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator. “It's so exciting because they are going to recreate the conditions of just after the Big Bang,” she said.

The Ardingly Observatory, originally built by pupils in the 1950s, has been given a new lease of life with the installation of the new telescope. For aficionados, it is a 10-inch Meade LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain model with a GPS receiver. The Observatory has also been equipped with a number of small, entry-level telescopes and binoculars so that students of all ages and abilities can be introduced to astronomy.

Head of Physics Andrew Spiers said: “Having such an eminent expert here as Brother Consolmagno is a privilege for us and marks the official start of the school's Astronomy Club.”

Brother Guy met a number of promising space scientists, including 14-year-old Mary Reader and 16-year-old Charles Board, who have just won top prizes in a NASA competition. Ana Jackson, meanwhile, has co-authored a conference paper using results from the Hubble telescope.

Dr Spiers said some children had already been using the Observatory. “After seeing images of the night sky projected on to a screen from a camera fitted to the telescope one of our Pre-Prep pupils said to me: ‘This has been the best day of my life.' If we can enthuse students from a young age and inspire them to love science then that is fantastic,” he said.

His colleague, Physics teacher Igor Zharkov, said: “The Observatory enables us to observe the Moon and the planets, particularly, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; we're getting involved in international programmes to observe variable stars and students are learning the art of astrophotography as well as digital data processing methods. We would also like astronomers from local communities to join us and share their passion for stars.”