Sunlight & Buried Treasure!

From Solar Party 16/08/09

From Solar Party 16/08/09

Hi All,

On Sunday 16th August we attended a solar party event organised by the Birmingham Astronomical Society in Sutton park.

During the frequent periods of glorious sunshine we were able to see the sun through solar telescopes, a normal telescope fitted with a special solar filter and a ingenious instrument called a solarscope, which projected the sun's image onto a viewing plate for us all to see.

There was also a homemade instrument set up to measure the temperature of the light spectrum from the sun and a special camera connected to one of the solar telescopes which showed us the chemical composition of one of the sun's layers.

It was a very interesting and educational couple of hours.

Afterwards as the weather was so nice, we decided to try our hand at geocaching!

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate containers hidden outdoors, called geocaches, sign the logbook inside the box and then return the geocache back to its original location for the next person to find.

After following a set of clues centred around the Jamboree stone, we eventually found the geocache hidden at the base of a tree and recorded our names in the logbook.

As far as we know, this is the first geocache to be found by members of the 6th Sutton Colfield East District and the experience was very much enjoyed by all.

Geochaching is another activity we hope to be doing more of as a troop over the next few months and we may even hide our own geocache for others to find!

That's all for now, enjoy the rest of the Summer.....