STARGAZING WITH PHYSICS SOCIETY

How curious.

And so I found myself on a drizzly Tuesday evening at the Peter Bolas Observatory at Rosliston Forestry Centre, South Derbyshire, listening to a talk from Observatory Manager Ed Mann.

As he spoke to us, I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and wonder. The galaxies are vast and mysterious places, full of cryptic codes waiting to be deciphered. And telescopes are our tools for unlocking those secrets.

Mr Mann went on to explain more about telescopes and astronomy, from the relatively archaic duallens combinations of the 17th century to the multi-millionpound infrastructures that are common today. It was fascinating to learn about the different types of telescopes and how they are used to explore the universe in different ways. I was particularly intrigued by the section on radio telescopes, which use radio waves to study the universe. He explained how radio telescopes can detect things that are invisible to optical telescopes, such as black holes. It is amazing to think about how much we can learn about the cosmos through the use of these powerful instruments, gleaning data translating to a visual representation of the birth of our universe.

Heather Lomas, secretary of the Rosliston Astronomy Group, went on to explain another of their extraterrestrial endeavours: the Space Sapling. In 2015, accompanying Tim Peake to the International Space Station were pips taken from Isaac Newton’s apple tree - the very one that helped him with his field-defining work on gravity. Having spent six months floating in microgravity, they were cultivated in agar jelly at Kew in the hope that some would germinate. The team at Rosliston was privileged to win one of these saplings – only eight in total - against fierce competition from other prominent astronomical and botanical organisations. Others are sited at Jodrell Bank and the Eden Project. Years on, the well-travelled tree (> 700,000 km) stands proudly next to the Peter Bolas Observatory – a testament to the growing prominence of this organisation.

Being one of the liveliest astronomy organisations in the country, several focus groups have been set up within the Group, each devoted to a particular aspect of astronomy.

One of the most recent ventures has been astrophotography, with Mr Mann guiding us through the complicated process of directing, capturing and editing some of the most stunning pictures of cosmological bodies that I have ever seen – all of which are hundreds of thousands of kilometres away.

As the talk came to an end, I left the observatory feeling inspired and eager to learn more. Who knows what secrets the universe has yet to reveal to us, and what new discoveries we will make in the years to come?

Seb R (11P)