A visit to Sherwood Observatory in Sutton

Mansfield Chad

Did you know we have an observatory on our doorstep? Sherwood Observatory is owned and operated by Mansfield and Sutton Astronomical Society.  In this video, Stephen Binns, the observatory's communications officer, shares information about the site's past, present, and future.  To learn more about the site, its events, and open days, visit sherwood-observatory.org.uk

Transcript

00:00I'd like to tell you a bit about the telescope.

00:02Hello my name is Steve Binns, Communications Officer, Sherwood Observatory.

00:06What you're looking at now is the telescope which was built by our founder members.

00:11First light of this was 1983 and that was viewing the Orion Nebula.

00:18The scope was built by our founder members and it took a long while for it to

00:25obviously be completed because of the structure of it.

00:28We've got a 24-inch mirror which leads to a secondary mirror and then to the lens.

00:34The light comes through the aperture, it hits the main mirror and then it rebounds

00:39to the secondary mirror and then you can see whatever's in the lens through the lens there.

00:46We've had a new mirror last year.

00:49First light of that was also the Orion Nebula.

00:52So we've come full circle from 1983 to 2023 and both first lights was the Orion Nebula.

01:00Hello, welcome to Sherwood Observatory's lecture room.

01:03You can see here this has got seating capacity for nearly 50 people.

01:08Every month we have a lecturer who comes here and gives us a lecture about all aspects of astronomy.

01:15We have approximately 3,000 visitors per annum.

01:19This includes the scouting movement, the girl guides and all other movements within that range.

01:26They come here to get their badges and they love it.

01:31We've even had children who's gone on to do science as a career

01:35and even astronomy at university as a career.

01:38So hopefully we're hoping to get more children through like that.

01:43When the Science Discovery Centre opens,

01:45we hopefully will have a turnover of 20,000 people per annum.

01:50We will have a show rota including the planets, SETI, the solar system and lots of other shows.

01:59These will be on during the day and at night.

02:02So there'll be a cafeteria there and hopefully people will be engaged into astronomy

02:08and hopefully do this as a science career for their future.

02:13Okay as you can see I'm standing on the telescope pad now.

02:16We have telescopes here for solar days during the day which look at the sun safely

02:21and on our open evenings we have telescopes to view the night sky.

02:25Behind me you can see our dome where the 24-inch scope is based.

02:29We can look through at galaxies and aurora with that.

02:34Behind me more to my right you can see radio antennae.

02:40The one on the right is SuperSID.

02:42The one in the middle is for Jupiter and Io system.

02:46We can hear the sounds coming from space.

02:50The ones on the very tall platform, they are meteor detection aerials.

02:55If any meteors go above, they're based at France and Belgium,

03:00they send the information to us and we can download that information

03:04on our computer systems in the Radio Astronomy Centre which is up and running up there.

03:10To my right.

03:12So all in all we've got a good selection.

03:14We've got solar scopes, night viewing and we've got radio astronomy as well.

03:19So that's what Sherwood Observatory is all about.

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