Schoolchildren and Students Visiting ING
Throughout the years we have welcome groups of students from local or abroad schools and universities.
ING can assist the organisers in planning the trip
and the stay on La Palma as well as, of course, the visit to the
Observatory on a best-effort basis.
Finding out about La Palma and the ING
Visiting the ING Telescopes
Observing with the 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn
At ING we ran a pilot project at the 1.0-m Jacobus Kapteyn
Telescope (JKT): in coordination with experiensed teachers and the
assistance of astronomy students, schoolchildren could use this telescope participating in research projects. At present this programme is no longer active.
The observations
The students carried out their own observing programme on the JKT on a discretionary night or participated in
one of our current projects. In some special cases, and with the previous acceptance of the observer, they could join part of an observing night at the telescope.
The preparation of the observations took place before leaving for La Palma.
The selected students were awarded by their teachers and in some cases they passed a selection process.
The day before the observations the students stayed at the observatory's
residence, together with the rest of the professional astronomers. At arrival
they were shown round the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, the William
Herschel Telescope, the Isaac
Newton Telescope and the Caldera de Taburiente National Park from its highest peak. On this first day, they went to
bed late after finishing the observing programme with the supervision of a professional astronomer.
On the observing day the students woke up late and in the afternoon they
visited the JKT. Then they participated in the set-up of the telescope in the evening and after dinner
they started the observations. Students could go to bed at any time as the astronomer could finish the observations for them. During observations the
students and the astronomer talked about the physical aspects of the
observed objects and participated on the reduction and analysis of the data.
On the following day the students were introduced to image reduction
and they left the observatory for sea-level with the raw data.
They were invited to visit our sea-level base in Santa Cruz de La Palma.
Then the images were reduced by the astronomer and passed onto
amateur astronomer Nik
Szymanek. Nik is an expert and world-famous for producing astonishing astronomical
pictures from CCD images.
After observing
After observing they were invited to prepare a report to be posted on these web pages together with pictures of the visit and the
data reduced by the support astronomer. The authors of the images are the students themselves. We also encouraged the students to
make a presentation at their school or elsewhere.
Recent observations and visits carried out by the students:
JKT
- 11 June 2000. Cornwall Schools Astronomy Project (UK). More information.
- 7 August 2001. Cornwall Schools Astronomy Project (UK). More information.
- 24 November 2001. La Palmita School, La Palma (Spain). More information.
- 25 November 2001. Thomas Hardy School, Dorchester, Dorset (UK).
More information.
- 27 March 2002. La Palmita School, La Palma (Spain). Bad weather.
- 21 July 2003. Thomas Hardy School, Dorchester, Dorset (UK). More information.
INT
WHT
Links to similar school projects
In links related to dissemination of
astronomy you will find plenty of links to similar school projects and
useful information for students and teachers.
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