A WEEK OF 'ASTRONOMICAL' EVENTS

This week is going to be a HUGE week for our family, being great lovers of all things relating to Astronomy. The fact we recently bought ourselves a Celestron Nexstar 4SE telescope is going to make this week even more enjoyable.

For those who aren't aware tomorrow night (Monday 4th June, 2012) will be a Full Moon in Partial eclipse. The Moon will go into a partial eclipse phase from 8pm until ending at 10:06 pm. Those who do not have a telescope you will still be able to view with your naked eye. It's a perfect time of the night to take your older children out to the backyard to watch the Moon darken. The portion of the Moon not covered by the eclipse will be a brilliant reddish hue caused by illuminated sunlight refracted through the Earth's atmosphere. I'm hoping to get some photos, taken through the telescope, to share with you all here.

Something I am even more excited by happening this Wednesday (6th June, 2012) is the Transit of Venus. This is the last time we will view a Transit of Venus in our lifetime, as another will not occur til the year 2117. Venus will pass across the face of the Sun leaving us being able to view this rare occurrence for a total of 6 hours and 40 minutes. For those of us living on the east side of Australia we are particularly lucky to be able to view the entire transit, dependant on clear skies. So far weather forecasters are predicting that we will mostly have favourable weather conditions on Wednesday which sounds great to me!

For those of you without a telescope you are only able to view the transit using a pair of special viewing glasses (most places are running out of stock quickly). If you are lucky you may be able to pick up a pair from Astro Petes at Palmdale shopping centre, Upper Mount Gravatt. He has back order to fill at the moment but is hoping to have more in stock before Wednesday. Even those of us with a telescope will need to use a special filter to block the sun's radiation as viewing the sun directly with or without a telescope can cause serious eye damage, not limited to blindness.

This is certainly going to be a great week for Homeschooling with our emphasis this year on Science, particularly the Solar System. Along with today's visit to the Brisbane Planetarium to watch the Cosmic Collisions show, this week is jam packed full of learning in the best way possible, the fun way!