(Update 12 January 2016) I am able to visit ACT Public Schools with this planetarium in 2016. For more information visit the Canberra Portable Planetarium website.
(Posted 17 April 2015) Last night, I ran a short session in the planetarium for members of the Canberra Astronomical Society as part of the April general meeting programme.
I have had the idea of doing this for some time but have been prevented from suggesting the idea due to the long hours I put in at work. The realisation that my being on holiday happened to coincide with the April meeting of the society lead to a quick phone call to the president of the society Bill Frost about offering a planetarium session to members and visitors. The large size of the planetarium also presented a problem. Fortunately, Dr Brad Tucker (head of public outreach at Mount Stromlo Observatory) suggested that I use the eating area in the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre as a venue.
The planetarium takes an hour to set up, so I timed arriving up at Mount Stromlo with plenty of time to spare. This included some takeaway food to allow me time to rest after eating, time to enjoy the sunset plus a few minutes spare to try a bit of tripod astrophotography.
I have had my eyes on the remains of the Yale-Columbia Refractor building for some time. The above and below image are short exposures taken with a tripod mounted DSLR with part of the ruins in the frame. I plan to go back at some stage when I have purchased a wide angle lens. My 18 – 55 mm lens was not wide angle enough to capture the atmosphere of the remains of the building with the stars shining overhead.
Approximately 20 members of the society took part in the session. I demonstrated how the planetarium could be used like an Imax theatre – by showing an all hemisphere animation of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. I also demonstrated how the freeware astronomy computer Stellarium could be used to show the night sky including with the ancient Greek constellation art work. Unfortunately technical problems (the length of the table!) prevented me from aligning the projector and mirror properly. This meant I had to postpone demonstrating a couple of the things that Stellarium can do in a planetarium setting due to the distortions caused by the misalignment.
For those interested, it is possible to set up a planetarium in your own house. I use a pop-up camping tent which I have cut the bottom out off installed in a spare room (see above image) and sitting on triangular cardboard legs. Just visible is the brown desk on which the data projector, spherical security mirror and laptop sit. Stellarium can be freely downloaded here and it only takes the tick of a box to make it work in spherical projection mode (necessary to ensure that it projects onto your dome correctly).
Finally if you are visiting Canberra, it is worth a visit to Mount Stromlo Observatory. A brochure (with map and notes) can be downloaded here to assist you with your walk around the buildings. Note that the visitor’s centre and coffee shop is currently closed. Hopefully it will be opening again in the near future.
