Hullett's Astronomy Page

Astronomers are called 'naturalists of the night'. Since Hullett is a naturalist's paradise, we bring you our Astronomy Page. Hullett has a few locations where you're able to view the sky as it was meant to be viewed - under pristine and dark country skies. We held an Astronomy Night on Saturday, August 11th, where 40 intrepid and budding amateur astronomers joined us in drinking in the beauty and mystique of the night sky.

Space is a LARGE place! For instance, imagine the Earth is the size of a baseball (approx 3 inches), the Moon (240 000 miles away) is a ping-pong ball 6.7 feet from the baseball. The sun will be a huge ball, 26 feet in diameter, a half-mile away! Now consider the Sun as a baseball. Jupiter, the largest planet, is a cherry pit, 260 feet away, while Pluto is a grain of sand 1050 feet away (that's the length of 3.5 football fields!). To really blow you away, the nearest star to us (Alpha Centauri) is another baseball a whopping 1460 MILES away!!! It really is hard to even fathom!

Have you ever looked through a telescope? Have you seen a bright meteor streak through a clear, dark sky? See both for yourself on August 11th at Hullett's Astronomy Night! The pictures on this page show what's out there - glowing gas and dust, and stars by the trillions! There is an amazing universe to explore and to get started, you just need a pair of binoculars, a star chart and your eyes. Good websites to check out are Sky and Telescope (www.skyandtelescope.com) and Astronomy Magazine (www.astronomy.com), and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's webpage at www.rasc.ca.

For August Star Chart, click here. (Adobe Acrobat required)

During Astronomy Night we had great looks at stars, Jupiter, Perseid Meteors and quite a few objects through the telescope. We pointed out constellations and even saw a pass of the International Space Station. We've had great feedback on this event and are glad that everyone had a good time.

We thank everyone who came out for our first ever Astronomy Night. Due to the success of this event, we will plan to have another soon.