Monday 27 April 2009

Trip to Greenwich

Greenwich Royal Observatory


On Saturday, Him Indoors and I went to the Greenwich Royal Observatory with our Astronomy club. The day started with us having to get up at 6am as we had to make a packed lunch and go to Bexhill to get the coach. The coach left at 8am and we were at Greenwich by 9.45am, so not bad going.This is home to the Prime Meridian of the World, its basically the line where you all align your clocks too...... Its why you are +8(GMT) or -8(GMT), GMT = Greenwich Mean Time..
We had a private tour pre arranged, even though we had done this a couple of years ago. We also did the new Planatarium which wasn't there a couple of years ago. It was really good.

Planatarium at Greenwich

The Peter Harrison Planetarium at Greenwich, has a cone which is one of the single largest uses of bronze in the world. It is made of nearly 250 individual plates welded together and made to look like on piece, the shape of the cone is related to the stars and unique to its location in Greenwich.

The whole Planetarium is aligned with the prime meridian line, the sloping side of the cone points towards the north celestrial pole.The north side of the cone is aligned with the point in the sky perpendicular to the Greenwich local Horizon (zenith). The cone is sliced at the angle parallel to the celestial equator.

We also went to the National Maritime Museum which I love visiting. I love gawking at the uniform of Admiral Nelson with the bullet hole clearly visable on the left shoulder. If you have never been. I highly recommend you do as there is something interesting for everyone.

We headed down to the charcoal remains Cutty Sark which was burnt down just after we visited last time. You can't really see anything now as it is covered in awnings and the like.

Overall, we had a great day and the weather was mostly sunny with the odd light shower.

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