UNAWE and TEMI Netherlands set up a series of astronomy masterclasses in collaboration with secondary school Montaignelyceum in The Hague, The Netherlands. The first edition consists of six classes and are themed ‘exoplanets’. Starting 30 October, a group of around 20 enthusiastic students aged 11-13 years old will receive a masterclass on this exciting new subject every week. Each participating student signed up voluntarily for the extracurricular activity, so our speakers can prepare for a very interested audience and a large number of questions! The audience, in turn, should be prepared for a full schedule. During the first masterclass, Leiden Observatory PhD student Jens Hoeijmakers will give an introduction into astronomy in general. A week later, on 6 November, teacher Johan Neuteboom takes the class to observatory Rijswijk for a real life peak into the Universe. The third masterclass it’s Jens again, who explains to the students all they need to know about exoplanets. On 20 November the group goes on another trip; this time to the Junior Science Lab at Leiden University. During this session they will recreate an exoplanet transit—the blocking of a little bit of starlight by a planet that passes in from of its sun. In the final two masterclasses, a brand new telescope system will be tested inside a classroom situation: LCOGT, or Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network. This network consists of eleven 1- en 2-metre telescopes that provide global coverage of the night sky. At any given time of day, at least a few telescopes are active on the night side of the Earth. Next to a research component, LCOGT has an educational purpose. Astronomy educators are assigned a number of hours to get children in touch with real life observing through enormous, professional telescopes. In the masterclasses, the students will select an exoplanet transit that they’d like to observe and actually photograph it from a distance with the LCOGT. And as a cherry on top, they chose a number of beautiful exotic space objects that they want to take a pretty picture of. With the On Sky feature, they will be able to watch the observation take place and see the photograph come in just moments later. After the first series of masterclasses this autumn, UNAWE and TEMI Netherlands have another two series planned together with Montaignelyceum. Those will take place next winter and spring. More information will follow on this website.
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