Nature Features

The partnership between Stroud High School and the Faulkes Telescope Project is giving pupils real hands-on experience.

They are getting the chance to collect detailed images of distant galaxies, stars and clusters using large telescopes located on Hawaii and Australia.

These machines can be controlled live over the internet from the school.

The project is being run by a team from Cardiff University.

The Sixth Form pupils will be working with postgraduate students at the University assisting them with their studies on open star clusters.

Photo: The Faulkes Telescope Project

New ideas

It is even hoped that their work might eventually be published in an academic journal.

Physics teacher Iain Green is excited about the project:

"They're looking at data that's never been looked at.

"There's an astrophysicist at Cardiff University who's collected the data but hasn't had a chance to look at it and process it.

"These students are going to grab a hold of it, process the data and show off that through a presentation and maybe get it printed in an astronomical journal."

Most of the students involved in the project have already completed their astronomy GCSE and are finding the work exciting too.

Students at Stroud High School

"You don't really know what's out there and there's so much to investigate and it's just so fascinating", says Susanna, who is in Year 12.

Eleanor is another Year 12 student and she says using official information is one of her highlights.

"Usually from most experiments in science it's data you've got yourself that isn't entirely correct.

"We're the first to actually analyse and process it so we'll be doing something new rather than something that's been done again and again."

Remote Control

Through the internet students can control the telescopes on the other side of the world.

Some students are using the machines to take pictures of distant stars.

And teacher Iain Green says even he gets amazed at what they can do:

"I was like a little kid in a sweet shop when I first went on the telescope because it had this little countdown which, once it got there, it asked if I wanted to take control of the telescope.

"It's a really fulfilling experience when you make an image."