Advanced Astronomy Sessions at Blueberry Pond Observatory for High School and Talented Students:

High Schools involved: Cape Elizabeth High School · Brunswick High School · Windham High School · Other schools

Cape Elizabeth High School and Projects at BPO:

Cape Elizabeth has put together 8 teams, most of them consisting of two students:

1) Lindsay E., Laura E., Becky L.
2) Caitlin M., Stephanie R., Karen S.
3) Emily J., Katharina H.
4) Dan G., Debra W.
5) Elisabeth G., Melissa Y.
6) James C., Andrew C.
7) Chris C., Scott P.
8) Jon B., Dov M.

They have undertaken projects such as asteroid rotation measurement, and studies of the Andromeda Galaxy, Pleiades Star Cluster, and Horsehead Nebula area.

Look further down on this web page to see some sample pictures from their projects...

Team 1's Horsehead Nebula Mosaic in action

Team 5's Andromeda Galaxy Mosaic in action

Team 6 tracking Asteroid 38 Leda over a span of hours. The asteroid is the only object not moving in the image.

Team 6 tracking Asteroid 16 Psyche over the span of hours. Asteroid is the moving star like object

Team 4's shot of M42 Orion Nebula by stacking eight 10 second shots.

Team 7/8 taking a shot at the Black Eye Galaxy M64, composite of five 1 minute shots

Team 7/8's shot of M3 globular star cluster, nearly 45,000 stars lurk inside this ball of light.

One of Team 2's shots of a star in the Pleiades, along with some of the gas around the star (somewhat distorted by camera)

Team 5 captured a nice shot of a meteor or other object while capturing images of the Andromeda galaxy

Team 1's colorful shot of the Flame Nebula, near the Horsehead Nebula

Brunswick High School and Projects at BPO:

Brunswick's team of Grant T., David Q., and Zack H. have been observing and categorizing various galaxies. These galaxies fall into a number of classes, and eventually they want to have observations of most of the major types of galaxies.

See below for a sample of their images so far...

Shot of M1 the Crab Nebula made by combining seven 1 minute shots

M64 Black Eye Galaxy, a five minute exposure

NGC253 Sculptor Galaxy, 5 minute exposure

Windham High School and Projects at BPO:

Christina C. and David T. have had their orientation visit to the observatory, and plan to study asteroid rotation for their project.

Look further down on this web page for a sample of pictures taken by them so far...

M37 Open Star Cluster, one minute exposure

M1 Crab nebula, just a one minute exposure

M42 Orion Nebula, ten 10 second exposures combined.

Other Schools:

Other schools that have taken part: Bonny Eagle High School and Gould Academy.