Latest version of the Cosmic Chatter - Tara Anglican School for Girls

Team Viewing Night & Kepler 20-F
From the Observatory
Observing for 2012 began with the Space Odyssey students honing their astronomy skills by
participating is team viewing nights run by the Team Leaders and CEO’s- Jessica Hough, Brittany
Fossey and Matt Jacob.
SPOT CEO’s Matt Jacob (The King’s School) and Jessica Hough (Tara)
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Luckily the skies cleared and we had excellent
views of Venus, Jupiter, the Tarantula nebula and
the Christmas tree star cluster while using the 8
inch Dobsonian telescopes and the Oxford 20
inch telescope. Jupiter and Venus can currently
be seen with the naked eye as bright objects in
the western sky just after dark.
In what is just another example of the cutting edge technology in use at the Tara Observatory, a
minor problem with the optical telescope's focus was fixed last week all the way from Oxford
through use of a program called Team Viewer, which lets the scientists in England access the
telescope remotely via the dome computer in Australia. The telescope and dome were manned by
SPOT students who, guided by Dr Andrew Gosling from Oxford, resolved the problem with the result
that telescope is fully operational again.
We congratulate Brittany Fossey for winning of the Astronomical Society of NSW Young Writer
Competition 2011 for her article on her study of Saturn’s moons and Rebecca Newman and Fleur
Combridge for being Runners Up. They were all published in the ASNSW Universe Magazine and
received prizes from the ASNSW and the Binocular and Telescope.
SPOT Members Anneliese Cooper,
Rebecca Newman, and Fleur
Combridge, all from Tara, with Karen
Wittingham