Siding Spring Observatory

Year 12 Physics students departed for Coonabarabran early on the morning of Monday 26th May to attend the ASTRO-3D Astronomy excursion at the Siding Spring Observatory—home of the famous 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope, which is considered the most scientifically productive 4-metre-class optical telescope in the world based on scientific publications.

Students attended several lectures delivered by experts in the fields of spectroscopy, stellar nucleosynthesis, star formation, imaging, and cosmological distance measurements. In addition, they constructed their own spectrographs to view emission spectra from the Sun, measured meson interaction rates, and determined Hubble's constant using real data from distant galaxies receding due to the expansion of the Universe.

A big thank you to ASTRO-3D and Matt Dodds for running the excursion.