THS Astronomy Night Information

Information for THS Astronomy Nights:

For these observation sessions, here's what I would recommend:

1. Dress appropriately! This means warm clothing, hats, scarves, sturdy boots, etc.

2. If you want to, you can bring a flashlight, but either put about 5 layers of red cellophane over the front of it (use a rubber band to secure it), or color in the front 'lens' with a red marker. Afterall, you want to keep your night vision as good as possible, right??

3. We'll be using THS's 12.5" Meade Starfinder Dobsonian telescope for most of these observation sessions, but you're welcome to bring your own if you have one. I can't guarantee being able to show you how to use yours if you don't already know, but I can try!

4. If you check below, I have a link to 'AstroGeek's Observatory Clear Sky Chart', which is a good reference to see what the sky's going to be like during an observation session. Be sure to check it out up to a couple hours before!

Taunton High School currently has 4 telescopes:

In 2000 we bought a Meade Starfinder 12.5" Dobsonian that was upgraded in 2001 with a new finderscope, focuser, and assorted lenses from Orion Telescopes.

In June, 2002, the school bought it's second telescope, a Meade ETX-125EC. which came complete with a deluxe field tripod and Meade's "Autostar", allowing the observation of over 12,000 objects! Unfortunately, this one is in need of repair, so it is not being used.

Our 3rd telescope, another Meade, is a DS-2114 AST, a simplified 'GOTO' telescope. We're got this new telescope since I attended a Mass DOE Standards workshop in 2004 in Plymouth. It's a degree simpler than the above 'scope, but still gets great images!

Our newest telescope is a Keplerian "Sunspotter Telescope" from Learning Technologies in Cambridge. This facilitates observation of the sun during the day, and make watching sunspots much easier for us!