Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

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Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by marktownley »

Over a year ago I was invited to attend the 'Solarsphere' astronomical and music festival in Builth Wells, Mid Wales. I agreed back then as it sounded like fun and it sure was. I've not seen anything like it in the UK before; a 3 day festival around the theme of astronomy and music, like it says on the tin...

Image20636642136_3b19993a39_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Crazy traffic on the friday meant we didn't get there till the evening so we settled in to do a bit of exploring; several hundred people - an eclectic mix of ages from children to the more mature. I've not appeared on the listing for something before, but on this was on with Justin Sullivan of the band 'New Model Army'.

Image20636656266_0b4d969a23_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

The weekend in general didn't offer particularly clear skies, this was the general theme, but it was warm and bright, and by upping the gain on the PGR camera could punch through the clouds so folks could get a view on the laptop screen.

Image20653715722_3c881f4917_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

I have to say this is one of the best places i've done outreach - Stephen would like it, there were absolutely no stuffy Brits (as he would call them!), everyone who I spoke to was friendly, pretty much most people were absolutely amazed you could observe the sun and then were even more gob smacked when they saw it through the scopes. I was using simple spectroscopes as part of my repertoire for the first time, and, have to say these were a great hands on aid in the whole outreach thing.

Image20653721312_46cdd1df72_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Image20653717902_c50af2d1c3_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Image20476192029_efa383138a_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Image20474925740_0fd9bfc06b_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Image20474924248_9299bf3d49_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

We had some great talks here too - Damian Peach, Dr Megan Argo, Will Gater, Lucie Green and Prof John Zarnecki. One of my highlights has to be having breakfast with John on the sunday morning and then him coming along and helping me with some outreach shortly after, in between talking to the festival goers he gave the outreach rig a thorough examination before chatting to me about the band pass of my filter systems and what (and why) I was using for ERFs(!). Mind you for a man that developed the faint object camera for Hubble, was involved in the Beagle 2 project and then was responsible for the Huygens probe that landed on Titan as part of the Cassini mission I guess etalons and ERFs are small talk.

Solarsphere is back on next year, on the 12th, 13th and 14th August, I shall be certainly going again, it was lots of fun. If you're able to you should go along, it's different and lighthearted.

Mark


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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by Montana »

:hamster: :hamster: :hamster: sounds fantastic!!! I was praying for good weather for you all weekend, we had a super clear night Saturday night, so I hope all the DSO hunters were happy too. I would have loved to have gone, but I don't think the Hubby could cope with longer than 4hrs of Astronomy ;)
What was Lucie Green like ;)

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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by Solar B »

Wow looks like a fabulous weekend there Mark :)

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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by Ewan »

Sounds like an very good event to attend Mark.
Nice set up & good to see the masses taking an interest too.


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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by solarchat »

Thank you for the great work Mr. Townley!


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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by Derek Klepp »

Absolutely awesome Mark.Considering I live basically in a festival site perhaps there is some outreach potential there.


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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by marktownley »

Thanks folks, it was definitely lots of fun! Darren would have been fine Alexandra, Fiona was happy all weekend, there's loads to do there on site to keep you amused, and if you wanted loads of things around in the area to do and see - Red Kite centre etc, getting on and off site is no problem. The night sky was the darkest i've seen since northern Iceland a couple of years ago too, next year I will be taking a pair of binoculars with me. I didn't see any of the talks as I was outside with the scopes all the while, but from what people have said they went down very well indeed. A couple more pics...

Image20662896745_bc30220ac4_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr

Image11900147_730535570408272_7234681877207709280_o by Mark Townley, on Flickr


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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by Carbon60 »

Excellent, Mark. Looks fantastic. Maybe I'll attend next year.....

Great outreach......maybe some more solar converts??

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Re: Solarsphere Astronomy & Music Festival 14, 15, 16 August

Post by James0057 »

SUNTASTIC event Mark some of these pic show a nice blue . A weekend thng as well...my wife would have to have some Art or music as well..thanks for sharing pic ....Clear Skies to you & Fiona :-)


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