Stargazing LIVE returns for a third three-night series from 8-10 January 2013 to encourage everyone – from the complete beginner to the enthusiastic amateur – to make the most of the night sky.
Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain will broadcast from the control room of the Jodrell Bank Observatory, interacting live with the audience and calling on a starry collection of the country’s finest astronomical minds to explore the majestic wonders of the cosmos. As well as asking some of the big questions, there will be hints and tips for getting started in stargazing and advice on navigating your way around the skies. And with scores of Stargazing LIVE events occurring across the UK throughout January and February 2013, there will be some incredible opportunities for making the most of the night sky.
EU UNAWE UK have invited their German NPM colleague, Natalie Fischer to join in the Northern Ireland main event on Thursday 10 January 2013 at Lough Neagh Discovery Centre. Primary school children arrive in the afternoon for their space themed activities including our work on the Solar System and Constellations. Families arrive from 6 to 10pm.
The following morning further space activities will be offered to two primary schools in Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone.
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Aoife McKevitt, Assistant BBC Producer has also made us aware that as part of their Stargazing Live efforts in Northern Ireland, the BBC are working with Lismore Comprehensive School, Co Armagh to send a weather balloon into the stratosphere!
“We’re going to be launching (with some small go-pro cameras) around 20th Dec from Fermanagh (best place to launch as it’s less likely to end up in the Irish sea). The school is going to put some experiments on the balloon (temperature, pressure, wind speed etc) as well as the first Pudsey to be sent from NI into the stratosphere. Our big plan is to work with the school to launch, track and retrieve the balloon using a GPS, the end result being some lovely footage of the curvature of the earth and a clean, dry Pudsey. We’ll launch around 10am and the chase team will track and follow in a jeep.
We have commissioned a Twitter account which will follow the progress of this experiment so whether we succeed or fail it should all be a bit of fun and we’re hopeful that BBC Newsline will do a piece on us too. In the meantime we’d be really grateful if you and/or your organisations could follow us @bbcskyballoon or https://twitter.com/bbcskyballoon and if anything interests you please feel free to retweet us to your own followers!”
Find the answers to your starry questions by checking out some of the amazing resources on the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019h4g8/features/schools and http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019h4g8/features/star-and-moon-guides
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