Chapters 1 and 2, and Aladin

From one of the online OU activities it seems like we'll be using some high-brow scientific software. Aladin to be precise (and, yes, that is how you spell it).

Aladin opens with a completely unintuitive amount of options. Thankfully it has an undergraduate mode which hides most of its complexity. Although, I've still no idea how to fully work the thing. One activity is to load up a FITS image (shown above), zoom in/out of it, tinker with its colours (or lack of) and import an online database of stars and what-not. Techie, and geeky. Thus it has my approval.


MOAR ALADDIN!  :D

It Has Begin: OU S177 - Galaxies, Stars and Planets

Well, when I say 'started' I mean 'hobbled'. <snip>

I'm rewriting this post as, to be fair to OU, the course doesn't officially start until the 12th of May, so I'm being a tad harsh on them,

The course unofficially started on the 08th of May with the rather awful website that I posted about previously. Now, today (09th), they've updated the site to be far more helpful with actual activities using the Aladin (Java based) software and some questions and video files. Hell, there's even a forum for us S177 folks now! Hoorah!

The Moon and The OU

Although the course doesn't start until the first week in May, I got my Open University text book the other day!

I thought it was going to just be your bog standard here's-what-Mars-looks-like type thing, but it has formulas, big numbers and will, apparently, require a scientific calculator! Oh dear...

Last night was pretty cloudless which meant I could not only see the Moon, but I could try out my camera mount thingy I got a while ago:

Which resulted in some nice Moon photos. Here's one:

I'm getting the hang of remembering to flip the image horizontally and vertically to take into account of the telescope mirrors.  :)