The amazing night sky

Yesterday Rob and I went to the observatory at Hertmonceax. The telescopes there are the original ones from the Greenwich Observatory - relocated in WW2 to avoid the bombing. They were never returned, due to the light pollution in London rendering them pretty useless there.

I was very excited, having never seen anything through a telescope of note, the moon twice its size as seen by the naked eye hardly counts! So when, in the first dome, we looked through the telescope and saw Venus, I was suitably impressed! Here she is, just like I saw her....

The next dome had a telescope pointing at the moon.....despite it being quite a hazy sky it still looked a bit like this....How cool are those craters close up!

The next dome had the most impressive sight of all, we were lucky enough to be there just as some researchers were looking at Orions Nebula. Of course I had no idea what this was, but it sounded impressive! I looked through and saw something a bit like this....

I could see a line of 3 stars to the left, and was told I was looking at Orions dagger. I know Orion, and thought it was a not so powerful telescope, and I was seeing the dagger which I could have seen with the naked eye. Oh no, how very wrong I was! In fact, the haze I was looking at is just the middle of the three stars which make up the dagger! Look at this picture to see the one I mean, its the red one in the middle of the dagger....

A Nebula is the birth of a star, I'm not sure how it works, but I'm guessing (probably incorrectly) that at the moment the middle star isn't actually a star, but a cluster of stars, including some nebulas about to become stars. Or something like that.

To finish off, here is a pic Rob sent me of the Orion Nebula, seen on a much more powerful telescope, showing off its beautiful colours in all their glory.