The Cretney Observatory opened on Saturday 13 September. Photo: WAS Cretney observatory by Matt Balkham
A new observatory in South Wairarapa lets visitors watch exploding stars far away - and take the photos home with them.
The Cretney Observatory, which opened Saturday 13 September, boasts a powerful telescope that can capture scenes of far-away galaxies, stars and nebulae.
For Wellington Astronomical Society's Matt Balkham - the lead on the project - this was the payoff for five years of work.
"We've been through a long process over the last five years constructing the observatory... members of the society actually got involved in actually digging the foundations and constructing the platform on which the building sits, and then for the last couple of years we've been testing, working through the hardware and software side of things."
The 400mm Testar Officina Stellare RiFAST telescope in the new observatory was sourced from Italy. Photo: WAS Cretney observatory by Matt Balkham
The small but powerful facility is home to the 400mm Testar Officina Stellare RiFAST telescope, sourced from Italy. It sits on an eight tonne slab of concrete to keep the images stable.
The bulk of the work came from refining the technology, Balkham said.
"It's a reflecting telescope, it's a carbon fibre tube and two very high quality mirrors that reflect the light that's travelled all that way through the universe, through the galaxy, into our little telescope in Martinborough."
"It takes photographs, but it takes us many hours to acquire the data to produce the photographs, so several nights, up to 100 plus hours to produce a photograph sometimes."
The telescopes initial images comes through as a series of raw black and white photographs which are analysed and stacked. Photo: WAS Cretney observatory by Matt Balkham
It comes through as a series of raw black and white photographs, which are analysed and stacked to pull out the fainter details, before being coloured and sharpened.
The use of colour is able to distinguish different gasses and substances depicted in the photos, Balkham said.
"There's a whole range of different subjects, so a lot of what we take are areas of star forming or star deaths, areas of gas and dust and cloud that emit a light of different wave lengths. The colours that you see in the images, some of them are true colours and luminants, others are a more scientific or artistic representation of the wave lengths of light being emitted."
Balkham said it's a way to introduce amateur astronomers to the hobby, while letting more experienced Society members run things.
The Wairarapa region holds a special "International Dark Sky Reserve" status. Photo: WAS Cretney observatory by Matt Balkham
The observatory was set up thanks to a bequest from the late Syd Cretney, a founding member of the Society. Balkham said the legacy project came from their members' desire to see new technical boundaries pushed.
It takes advantage of a special "International Dark Sky Reserve" status that the Wairarapa region holds, which it secured in 2021. This status is one of the region's key selling points for tourists.
But beyond dazzling members of the public, the telescope can serve researchers and university students, not to mention the passion of their members, Balkham said.
"This is the really exciting bit for us now where we're able to use it."
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