Alston Observatory

The Alston Observatory is a purpose-built teaching facility. Also on the site are telescopes with a long history. We have recently added a new Discovery Dome planetarium system, exhibits on Telescopes as Time Machines funded by the Royal Astronomical Society, and an outside experiment Measuring the Cosmos.

Discovery Dome is an exciting system that allows a laptop computer and digital projector to display movies onto a planetarium dome, as well as enhanced planetarium shows. This will enable both informative material to be presented for evening events, and educational material for curriculum enhancement.

View of the main planetarium building and MAT telescope

Measuring the Cosmos applies the fundamental parallax technique to the measurement of distances to an artificial "constellation", demonstrating how difficult it is to determine distance in the Universe.

Telescopes as Time Machines looks at the 400 year history of the telescope, and relates observations to our understanding of the Universe, providing discussion points for understanding the idea that distance equates to time into the past when we are considering the vast distances beyond out solar system.

Header Image : V838 Mon and Tadpole Galaxy : credit NASA, H. Ford (JHU), G. Illingworth (UCSC/LO), M.Clampin (STScI), G. Hartig (STScI), the ACS Science Team, and ESA ; and solar plume courtesy of SOHO /EIT consortium

Author: SAChapman. Last Updated: Monday, 12 November, 2007