CITY OBSERVATORY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 105, 6 May 1933, Page 11

CITY OBSERVATORY

Despite the bad weather conditions last Saturday the sky cleared sufficiently at night to enable the.telescope at the Wellington, City Observatory to be used i for observation, by the public. Several very interesting objects were^ seen. The star Gamma virginis/appeared as a fina double Btar, rivalling the celebrated Alpha Centauri. The two components are very nearly equal in magnitude, and revolve about one another in a period of about 400 years. Also a splendid yjew was obtained of the globular star cluster Omega Centauri, which' contains ' hundreds o£ thousands of very faint stars; in fact the telescope shows more stars in this small region than can be seen on any dark clear 'night over the whole sky with the naked eye. Although light travels at the prodigious speed of 186,000 miles per second, it takes 22,000 years to reach us from this cluster. This gives some idea!of the spacepenetrating power of the telescope. A lecture was also delivered on the confines of space, and the lecturer referred briefly, with the aid of fine; lantern slides, to the various objects with which the astronomer is confronted in his study of the universe. The observatory will be;open,to.the public tonight at 7.30 o'clock, when the telescope willlie used if the sky is sufficiently clear. A! lecture will also, be, giv.en, on 'The Moon." The observatory is situated lm the Botanical Gardens at Kelburn.