| The 16th Whirlpool Star Party - Shannonside Astronomy Club |
| A most enjoyable weekend and an historic occasion |
Lesley and I attended the 16th Whirlpool Star Party at Birr and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. This was the second time we'd been, having enjoyed the previous year so much we went back for more. We've written this short report on our trip in the hope that it will encourage some of you to try it for yourselves.
Birr Castle with Birr and the Slieve Bloom Mountains beyond |
The small town of Birr is in the heart of Ireland in County Offaly. The surrounding area is known as Ely O'Carroll country after the early people known as the Eile and their descendants, the O'Carrolls, who lived here. Ely O'Carroll country is bounded on the west by the River Shannon, on the east by the Slieve Bloom Mountains and in the north by extensive bogs. The countryside is attractive rolling farmland with the nearby mountains brushing against the clouds on the horizon. The mountains are not high, they are more like the moors from my native Yorkshire, but they offer excellent walking with a circular route about the same length as the Lyke Wake Walk.
Birr is an attractive town with Georgian architecture and a Castle on one edge. Everything seems close together and intimate, and there are several pleasant pedestrian paths to stroll along. Emmet Square is in the centre of town and it provides the location for Dooly's Hotel where most of the programme was held.
The previous year the meeting had been held at the County Arms Hotel, a large building in extensive grounds to the south of the centre. The return to Dooly's seemed to be something of a home-coming as I gather it is the star party's traditional venue.
Proceedings started with registration from 8 pm on Friday togther with wine, sandwiches and nibbles. And, of course, an opportunity to meet some of the friends we had made the previous year and to make new ones.
Emmet Square circa 1900 - the doric column still stands but the statue has been removed |
We decided to skip the nibbles and eat late at the chinese restaurant just down the street. We had hardly eaten all day, having been delayed almost four hours at Stansted. Three of these were spent sitting on the plane while a discrepancy in the baggage was sorted out. Eventually, this was resolved by unloading all the baggage onto the apron then getting the passengers to identify their own before reloading it. Even then there was further delay whilst the airport authorities decided whether to allow the plane to leave. Apparently, some passengers had been seen opening their bags to check them and this created a different potential breach of security.
In the light of the week's events it is easy to understand the ultra-caution but I felt sorry for the flight crew who clearly looked to be under strain. And even the pilot sounded quite petulant when he gave his very infrequent updates while we waited. Eventually we took off for an uneventful flight, but the landing at Dublin was particularly hard and made us wonder if the pilot was still feeling grumpy. However, the chinese meal was excellent.
We booked our accommodation very late so stayed at a farmhouse bed and breakfast about two miles south of Birr. All the town accommodation, including Spinners where we'd stayed the previous year, was taken. We stayed with Mrs Veronica Minnock at Minnock's Farm. The farmhouse was extended about ten years ago to provide purpose-built rooms, all with en-suite facilities. Our rooms each had a double bed and a single and were quite spacious and well appointed. Breakfasts were excellent as was the welcome and friendliness we experienced. We certainly recommend it to anyone wanting to visit the area.
William Brendan Parsons, the Seventh Earl of Rosse, and his wife, Lady Alison Rosse (a Yorkshire lass) |
The programme proper started at 10:30 on Saturday morning with a welcome by Lord and Lady Rosse. They are long-standing supporters of the star party and kindly made the Birr Castle grounds and the giant telescope available.
The first speaker was Halton Arp, a controversial character who challenges the conventional view of red-shift and its relationship to distance. He gave many examples of clusters of objects that appear to be geometrically related but which show very different red-shifts. Is he 'way-off beam' or will his theories prove correct in the fulness of time? No-one knows yet but he gave a very good talk with lots of food for thought.
Due to the airline crisis one of the scheduled speakers, Jack Newton, couldn't make it so the talks were re-scheduled and John McFarland from Armagh Observatory stepped in and gave a short presentation on its history and current work. I learned that the cup anemometer was invented there together with lots of other interesting snippets, which brought us neatly up to lunch.
Having had a traditional Irish breakfast we decided a light lunch was called for so settled for a sandwich at a nearby cafe.
The Parsons family were pioneers in astronomy, engineering, botany and photography - the Science Centre tells their story |
After lunch, we all went to Birr Castle (a few minutes walk) to look round the science exhibition, the grounds and formal gardens, and of course, to see the giant telescope itself. The science exhibition is one of the best I've seen. It covers the activities of the Parsons family who were involved in a wide range of scientific and engineering endeavours, from astronomy and photography through to botany and steam turbines.
Sadly, we didn't have time to do the grounds justice but have the formal gardens to look forward to next time. We did manage to visit the whirlpool of lime trees and to take the meridian walk, arriving at the telescope just as the demonstration was about to begin. As it was put through its paces, the story of its construction and refurbishment was told. Much of the information needed to rebuild it was gleaned from contemporary photographs taken by Mary, Countess of Rosse. These were some of the earliest photographs taken in Ireland.
After the demonstration we made our way back to Dooly's for tea and a talk by John Flannery and other members of a trip to Africa to observe the Solar Eclipse. Their trip had been planned around a visit to Victoria Falls and quite a bit of sight-seeing (just in case the weather didn't co-operate for the eclipse). It turned out that they had a marvellous time and a wonderful eclipse, making us feel that we really must go eclipse hunting again.
Sir Isaac Newton remembers - do you recognise the asterism behind him with its appropriate extra 'star'? |
The next item was a real treat. We thought that the refurbishment of the Leviathan was quite a feat but it was nothing compared with the resurrection of Sir Isaac Newton. We were transported back to late December 1726 where an octogenarian Sir Isaac was sorting out a jumble of papers and reminiscing as he did so. We heard what he thought of many of his contemporaries as he read out correspondence and reflected on it. Many aspects of history that we knew as disconnected half facts suddenly fell into place in this most enjoyable history lesson. (Some people claimed it was really Mike Edmunds in disguise but I don't suppose they believe in Father Christmas either.)
We had planned to go back to the farmhouse before dinner, but got talking and before we knew it the meeting room had been transformed into a dining room and it was time for dinner. We found ourselves on a table with a very pleasant group of people including Frank Prendergast and his wife, Paula. Frank was due to give a talk the following day on Obliquity so we had the chance to discuss some of his ideas in advance.
At the end of the meal the doors were locked and no-one was allowed to leave until the quiz was over. This was organised by table with a thought-provoking set of questions. Fortunately, we had one member on our team who helped us perform moderately well, but some teams showed they had some really knowledgeable members.
As conditions were looking good the quiz was cut short and we all repaired to the castle grounds to look through a variety of telescopes including the 72-inch Leviathan. Using the telescope involves climbing onto an access platform which is then winched into place alongside the tube. Normally, the tube and platform would then be moved together to track the sky. However, getting several dozen people on and off the telescope safely in the dark made it impractical to track so the upper platform was parked in its access position and the tube brought alongside it. This aligned the tube with the Milky Way so we could watch star fields drifting by.
Lord Rosse's Leviathan - we used the upper platform to get to the eyepiece at night |
Getting to the eyepiece involved climbing about thirty feet into the air then walking down the platform, but it was well worth-while. Watching the stars and imagining early astronomers seeing these sights for the first time and embarking on a voyage of discovery was quite a thrill, especially when we realised this was one of the first observing sessions on the Leviathan for almost a hundred years.
Whilst waiting our turn we naturally discussed astronomy with those around us, including a profesional astronomer who has used many of the world's largest telescopes, but who confessed he couldn't identify much more than the Plough and Orion. Having worked for much of my career with research astronomers I had encountered this anomaly before, but it still surprises me. We showed him how to find the Andomeda Galaxy and he saw it for the first time in his life. (Don't worry Andy, your identity is safe with us; just keep up the payments.)
Someone showed us how to find Uranus which I saw through binoculars for the first time. (This might make some of you think that the pot was calling the kettle black in the last paragraph, and you'd be right. I worked for 22 years in professional astronomy and only started to find my way around the sky when we started Green Witch.)
Several people had taken along telescopes and binoculars so we were able to try them on a range of objects. The largest telescope was a 20-inch Dobsonian which made the Ring Nebula quite bright.
After the party was over we went back to the farmhouse where the sky was as clear and black as I had seen it for a long time. There were so many stars it was difficult to identify familiar constellations at first. After about twenty minutes enjoying the view the clouds came over so we went to bed.
The next morning we enjoyed another Irish breakfast then went for a drive to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The first talk was scheduled for 11:45 so we had time for a leisurely ride. Although it was quite cloudy the scenery came to life as shafts of sunlight moved across it. Very beautiful.
The first talk of the day was by Kenneth Woods who presented the theory that Homer wrote his Odyssey as an aide memoire for a range of astronomical data. Much research work had been carried out by Ken's mother-in-law, the late Edna Leigh, resulting in the publication of Homer's Secret Illiad but Mike and his wife have continued the work and the presentation concentrated on the Odyssey. This tells the story of Odysseus' 19-year journey back to his home after the fall of Troy. In Mike's theory this wandering is compared to the wandering of a lunar calendar relative to a solar one. After a Metonic cycle of 19 years they come together again. Within the many stories in the Odyssey Mike found that the number of charactors involved would add up to the number of days in a lunar year or some other significant value. It seems like too much of a coincidence for this to have been accidental, although one or two members of the audience seemed sceptical about the division of a lunar year into three parts which was part of Mike's theory. I must re-read the Odyssey with these ideas in mind.
In anticipation of further flight delays on the way home we decided to have a proper lunch. The Thatch had been recommended so we tried it and discovered we should have booked as it was very busy. However, they squeezed us in and we enjoyed an excellent meal. While looking through the leaflet on local eating places we realised we'd eaten at five of the eight featured (not all this year) so we're becoming authorities and can offer advice if you are interested.
The Liverpool Telescope in TTL's Merseyside factory - notice the roof opening that allows sky testing to be carried out |
After lunch Andrew Newsom talked about the Liverpool and Faulkes Telescope Projects. He is employed alongside a teacher to promote the use of these 2-metre telescopes by UK schools. The LIverpool Telescope was conceived as a 'technology demonstrator' that would double as a research tool for Liverpool John Moores University and as an advertisement for the range of off-the-shelf telescopes being developed and marketed by Telescope Technologies Limited (TTL) of Birkenhead.
Five percent of the Liverpool Telescope's time is available for UK schools and it is part of Andrew's job to work out how to make best use of this time and to encourage schools, teachers and pupils to get involved.
The time available for schools on the Liverpool Telescope is a valuable resource but the next development is quite staggering in comparison. Dill Faulkes, a successful businessman who wanted to put something back into UK education, set up a trust that has now paid for two 2-metre telescopes dedicated to schools. Not only will these telescopes be available to schools, they will be located on some of the world's best sites. One is destined for Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, the other for Australia. They will be accessible on-line and will operate robotically like the Liverpool Telescope.
Having played a part in getting the Liverpool Telescope and TTL started it was very encouraging to hear how well things were progressing. Andrew also showed photographs of TTL's factory with four 2-metre telescopes being assembled. One of these was the IUCCA Telescope destined for Pune in India. This is the first telescope I ever sold so I was pleased to hear that it had surpassed its acceptance specification and would be shipped to India as soon as its building was ready.
Andrew's enthusiasm is infectious and I am sure he will inspire many young people to get involved in astronomy and engineering. These telescope projects will have a tremendous impact on future generations and will revolutionise astronomy teaching in the UK.
Last year the organisers of the star party saved the best talk until last and Lesley and I nearly missed our plane as we couldn't tear ourselves away. So we expected another excellent talk to end with and were not disappointed. Frank Prendergast has spent considerable time and effort surveying many of Ireland's ancient earthworks, standing stones and burial places, and has tried to relate them to the sky as it appears now and as it might have appeared to the builders.
In particular, he has considered the precession of the equinoxes and showed several examples of how significant shadows have moved since the monuments were designed and built. This is not a new idea but has been applied to the pyramids to show (at least to some people's satisfaction) that they were built much earlier than conventional egyptologists believe. But Frank also used his research to show how obliquity must also be taken into account to give more plausible explanations of the designs of Irish monuments.
Like the last talk of the previous year which showed how dendrochronology (study of tree rings) must affect the way we look at history, Frank's talk shone a light into corners that I now feel I want to explore further.
All too soon, the party was over and we set off home. The return journey was relatively uneventful with just a short delay at Dublin and much-relaxed security. Even the landing at Stansted was quite gentle. As we drove back from the airport, tired but contented, the night sky was lovely and clear. Our old friend Saturn shone brightly to welcome us home.
Neil Parker, September 21st, 2001
Further details can be found by following these links:
- Shannonside Astronomy Club
- Whirlpool Home Page from 2001
- Birr Castle Demesne
- Liverpool Telescope
- National Schools Observatory
- Faulkes Telescope Project
- Liverpool John Moores Astrophysics Research Institute
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