The Universe visits Hinckley
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As a student, Dill Faulkes attended Hinckley Grammar (now John Cleveland College) and left with 6 A levels. Dill made a special request that students of JCC be the first to experience the excitement of using Faulkes Telescope North, in Hawaii, so on a snowy March morning the Faulkes Telescope team and Dill Faulkes made their way to Hinckley.
The event began with presentations by Lucie Green and Richard Beare introducing the project and the possibilities for using the telescopes to measure the sizes of distant galaxies and remnants of exploding stars. The students were then able to test the specially designed spreadsheets written to complement telescope observations, finding out that the Crab supernova remnant had expanded to 7 light years in diameter since the star was seen to explode by Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD.
Dr Lucie Green introducing the project
Without a doubt the highlight of the day occurred when the students were able to take direct control of the telescope and take their own images. Project Manager, Richard Cole, guided the students through the use of the telescope and explained how the images are formed using a digital camera. One student commented, "This is the best game I've ever played!" The students chose to take images of galaxies millions of light years away and were able to print them out to take home.
Dr Richard Beare demonstrating one of the spreadsheets
JCC english teacher Sue Thistlethwaite and science teacher Kully Atkar were amazed by how easily the telescope can be operated. In no time at all the students were comfortable operating a research-grade instrument 10,000 miles away and planning their own observations!
Some of the students working on Faulkes Telescope data.
