Observatory

The Physics department has its very own fully functioning observatory - a 3.5m located on the edge of the University housing within it a collection of permanently mounted and smaller portable telescopes used primarily for undergraduate teaching and occasional outreach events for local schools and astronomy groups.

the physics observatory seen at night
Physics observatory

Main equipment

  • 16 inch Meade LX200 telescope mounted on a permanent custom made equatorial mount
  • 8 inch Meade LX200 mounted to a portable az/alt tripod mount
  • 80mm guide scope with ccd autoguider camera fitted to the 16 inch telecope, used for the accurate tracking of objects over long periods of time
  • Dedicated H-alpha solar telescope, ideal for observations of prominences and other solar activity
  • Solar filters for the 8 inch Meade and 80mm guide scope
  • Spectrometer for use on the 16 inch telescope
  • 3m radio telescope

Students may use the observatory as part of their studies, as well as for final year projects involving astronomical spectroscopy, radio astronomy, solar observations, photometry etc.

Images captured from the Observatory

An image of the Horsehead and Flame nebulae, and the star Alnitak. Found within the Orion constellation. Taken at the º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Observatory using a William Optics Zenithstar 73 telescope and ZWO 294MC dedicated astronomy camera. The image is produced from stacking 40 minutes of exposure time, with further processing in Adobe Photoshop.
Supermoon picture taken by observatory
An image of a Supermoon. A supermoon occurs when two things coincide: the moon is full, and it's also at perigee. Together, those factors make the moon appear 30% brighter and 14% larger than it usually does. This unique alignment happens four times a year when the moon approaches its closest distance to our planet.