The STEM-Camp “Astronomy 2.0” ended last week with great success! Organised by the educational initiative “Astronomy and internet in Münster” and supervised by teacher Paul Breitenstein, the camp engaged 12 students from 8 different schools.

The students who attended the camp along with their guides and supervisors Paul Breitenstein and Christian Ambros.

The students obtained impressive images using the 0.4m and 2m Faulkes telescopes located in Siding Spring, Australia. After retrieving their images, the students used appropriate software to process them and create colours.

Image of galaxy pair NGC4302 and NGC4298 captured by some of the participating students. While situated at approximately 55,000 light years apart, evidence suggests that the 2 deep space objects are interacting.

Animation of the path of comet C/2021 E3 was created by Timotheus Pinkernell and Malte Schulz by combining several exposures of the comet.

The next item on the list for Breitenstein and Ambros is organising a course for teachers. They will be presenting how to take and create images of deep sky objects using the Faulkes telescopes so the teachers will be able to share this with their own students. The course will be organised in November-December 2022. “This was requested by the teachers themselves” mentioned Breitenstein in a communication to Faulkes Telescope Project.

For the coming semester, they are also working on a new project for students entitled “The Periods of Jupiter and its Moons”, where students will be able to familiarise themselves with the work carried out by professional astronomers.