Edinburgh RO Open Doors weekend

[Pheonix]

Turns out the weekend past was the Annual Edinburgh Doors Open Weekend and the Royal Observatory was taking part.

I was there for a very enjoyable and interesting three hours.

It was great to be able to see the observatory tower in action as well as looking through some pretty large scopes and talking to the professionals about a number of different things, including studies they are doing on Vega (well not actually on it!!).

What I wan't expecting was to see a part of the James Webb telescope that is being designed and built there (huge) as well as details of all the other tech that the ERO are involved in all over the world. Great to see that it isn't all NASA and that there is so much being done in our own backyards.

Really looking forward to going back on the 14th Oct for a 2 hour long session.

[Smeg]

Will they have a bouncy castle and balloons and face painters for the adults?

[blinky]

I went along and had a great time as well! Like yourself it was great to see that there is still some cutting edge space research being done in the UK - I think the kids were amazed that they were speaking to real scientists!!!

What is great about the place is that on one side are labs with the above cutting edge stuff, then there is a library and if you look on the outside of the library, down below, in the windows, you can see books about science dating back hundreds of years!

My fav bit of the day was the guy giving a lecture about studying asteroids, who was wearing a T shirt with the logo 'Yes, I am a rocket scientist'