We are proud to announce that on November 22nd, our partners in Hands-On Universe [Spain] from Fundación AstroHita appeared once again in 'Nature' journal of science. The article refered to the recently confirmed atmosphere -very faint and localized- at the dwarf planet Makemake. This contribution in which the astronomical complex based in Castilla la Mancha has participated is in the frame of the research of trans neptunian objects. The data collected by the 77 cm telescope in La Hita complex was useful to predict when the star was going to be hidden by Makemake.
“Astrometric refinement of the star’s and Makemake’s positions from CCD images obtained days prior to the occultation showed that the shadow path of the occultation would pass over South America (Fig. S1). A total of 108 astrometric measurements were obtained during 5 nights from images acquired at the f/3 0.77m telescope of La Hita observatory (Spain) in the period April 8th to April 12th 2011.”
Extract of the article published by 'Nature', num 491, pages 566-569 (November 22nd, 2012)
The effort that Fundación AstroHita made to improve their equipment permited to reach precise measurements and get this results.
By clicking HERE, you can access the article in 'Nature'.
At the bottom of the website, there is a link to a PDF file that includes data provided by La Hita observatory.
The academic year is moving on. And many secondary schools based in the region of Castilla-la-Mancha are currently immersed observing the region of Serpens through the exercise Setting references when everything moves: stellar streams. Teachers and students, all toghether, will try to find stars in the region of Serpens that have sufered motions. ¿How will they do that? By setting systems of references in the space.
This execise will allow students to understand what exactly is a system of references and why are they necessary to comprehend the motion of elements through the space.
In order to share questions and doubts, teachers participating in Discover the COSMOS' project gathered -during two sessions- with AstroHita Foundation, members themselves of Hands-On Universe.
Images taken by AstroHita Foundation during the meetings, by October 24th and 26th.
EU-HOU (Hands-On Universe Europe) has been awarded with the silver medal that the European Comission gived during the "Innovation and creativity in the Continuous Learning Program: create, innovate, cooperate" conference, that took place in Prague on May 6th and 7th, 2009.
HOU project is developing contents and infrastructure to make available cinematic experiments about the circular uniform movement phenomena using a network made of little radio-telescopes. By using these radio-telescopes it’ll be possible to measure how hydrogen clouds in our galaxy rotate around its own center. Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and Polytechnic University of Madrid subscribed an agreement to maintain and operate a little radio-telescope that’ll be connected to the Internet and will be available for teachers engaged with HOU for its use in the classroom.
