13th April 2024
by Cath Adams
At the end of 2023 Wolverhampton Astronomical Society was contacted by The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, who were planning a new exhibition about the origins of Iron in space. The trust asked if we would be able to provide images for their exhibition and also if any of our members would be available to volunteer at the exhibition. In addition to this, the Trust wanted to hold a stargazing evening at their Coalbrookdale site in Ironbridge, we agreed a date of 13th April 2024, the evening would include a talk about the night sky for beginners which would be followed by stargazing, weather permitting.
Myself and members of the Society arrived at the Coalbrookdale site around 6pm to set up our telescopes, at first the skies were clear but as it got towards the start of the event it began to rain so everyone headed to the talks room in hope the skies would clear.
Photo credit – Michelle Giddings
I had prepared a talk that gave an introduction to many of the astronomical objects that can be seen. There were 45 members of the public attending, and it was lovely to see so many children who along with adults asked many questions. Doug Bickley then took over and showed attendees some images and videos whilst I went outside to check the sky conditions.
It was such a relief to see beautiful clear skies over Coalbrookdale so visitors could come out and take a look through the various telescopes and binoculars.
Trevor Clifton brought along his imaging equipment and was able to show visitors M1 The Crab Nebula. This is the finished result, a brilliant image of M1, it should be noted the Moon was up at the time this was taken too.
Kevin Moore was using his SeeStar S50 and had a linked to a large TV screen so visitors could see the images of galaxies that he was taking.
Another smart-scope on view was the Dwarf Lab II belonging to Doug Bickley.
Ian Mould had quite a queue of visitors waiting to look through his telescope to see the Moon.
A number of visitors to the event had never looked through a telescope, some were quite blown away seeing the Moon’s craters!
Robin Hickman brought along his Parallelogram mount so visitors could look through binoculars.
Steve Wootton, David Philipson and Roger Metcalfe brought along a selection of telescopes that visitors were able to use to view the Moon and other astronomical targets.
Michelle Giddings did an excellent job taking photos of the event as we set up and also supporting me as I set up for my talk!
I also used my SeeStar S50, initially to show visitors how to image the Moon before moving onto M81 and M82, Bodes Galaxy and The Cigar Galaxy.
The evening was a great success, visitors asked many questions both at the talk and whilst outside stargazing. We had great feedback from the visitors as they were leaving.
Well done and many thanks to everyone who attended on the evening to deliver this stargazing experience in Coalbrookdale.