The Bestival organisers asked if Vectis Astronomy Society would bring some telescopes this year and we’re grateful they did. Professor Brian Cox does his wonderful stuff, and now at grass roots level, we’re picking up the reins and running with the enthusiasm out there.
Bestival crowd keen to partake
We had the most amazing time, it was wonderful to have so many cool young people eager to look through our telescope and giant binoculars.
The telescope was lined up on Sirius early on, when the moon came up it looked amazing – a fantastic stilton colour range as it rose in the sky. Most exciting was Jupiter easily visible together with four of its moons.
On the first night we also used an iPad app to show what else would perhaps have been visible in more favourable conditions.
400 people per night
We estimated that 400 people stopped by each night and so we were certainly kept busy. It was an experimental try at doing what we usually call “pavement astronomy” instead from a festival – it worked, so a big thank you to the Bestival for asking us along.
We loved it and got into the spirit of the wild animal theme using the constellations as inspiration – Pegasus, Cygnus and the Fox.
