Girl Guides visit Hartebeeshoek Radio Astronomy Observatory

Saturday 25th August was a day of excitement for Harmelia Air Scouts going to the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory as located near Hartebeespoort Dam.

Sisters of the Scouts in the Scout Group joined their brothers and parents on this outing.

On arrival at the observatory, everyone was facinated by the size of the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) radio telescope.

The evening started off with an introduction by HartRAO staff on how a Analemmatic Sundial works and also how a person can make their own one. Detail on how to make one is also available on their website
http://www.hartrao.ac.za/other/sundial/sundial.html

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The group was then introduced to why we have day, night and the seasons; the position of Earth in Space ; how satellite dish communication works and then given a presentation on a range of astronomy and space-related subjects. Fun was also had by launching water rockets.

Interesting to note from the presentation is the amount of "space junk" left is space (nuts, bolts, pieces of old rockets, etc) that can cause serious damaged to working satellites currently in operation in space. To see for yourself visit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7766894/Space-so-full-of-junk-that-a-satellite-collision-could-destroy-communications-on-Earth.html

The group where then shown the 15 metre diameter radio telescope that was built in 2007, the 26 meter diameter radio telescope and their satellite "laser ranger" that shoots a laser beam into the sky towards passing satellites to gather information. If the satellite is able to return a signal, it is detected by the radio telescope and captured detail stored for processing.

The evening closed with some viewing of the moon using optical telescopes (one optical refractive and the other an optical reflective).