Attenborough in space

Engaged, inquisitive, sharp-eyed and bright: ‘Attenborough Class’ at Langdon Primary School, about five km northeast of Dover, were a real joy to meet. Attenborough is a mixed Year 1 and 2 class, so the pupils are six/seven years old; this is definitely the youngest group of budding scientists I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. However, any nervousness on my part – and there was plenty! – was dispelled when the first group of pupils came out in the care of their teaching assistant, Clare. They were evidently keen to see something new, and having recently completed a space-themed study topic they also had a pretty good idea of what it was they’d be looking at.

What a delightful village primary school, with a mix of ‘traditional’ and modern buildings quietly set within grass and all-weather playing areas and with mature trees dotted around. My classroom for the morning was a patch of lawn in front of the Headteacher’s office window – the green arrow will point it out for you. (The headteacher, by the way, is my totally wonderful son, Andrew.) The view south from there was over the fence and across the small staff car park. Fortuitously, a large branch had recently been removed from the over-hanging tree so that we had a good view of the Sun’s path – and of the Sun itself as the clouds kindly thinned and cleared.

My first task with each small group was of course to make sure they knew never to look at the Sun without the sort of special equipment I was using. After that I introduced them to my pet robot and its view of the Sun … I had set up a Dwarf3 smart telescope to track the Sun so that I could show them an image on my ’phone. It was easy to point out from the image the string of three significant sunspots visible that day and to talk about what sunspots were. Having laid the foundations, each of them got the opportunity to view the Sun in more detail through the eyepiece of a telescope fitted with an appropriate solar filter. As is the case for first-time observers of all ages, it can be tricky for some to position their eye at the ‘sweet-spot’ near the eyepiece, but with a little coaching from Clare or from me everyone got to see the Sun as they’d not seen it before. Clare, and then class teacher Emma and other staff members also had a look; naturally, who wouldn’t want to have a go.

 

(Images supplied by the school in accordance with their rules on privacy and parental consent. The bald head is my responsibility.)  There’s nothing quite like having the privilege and the pleasure of watching someone see something qualitatively new to their experience, and to know that a seed of curiosity will have lodged in their minds. Germination, growth and fruition will depend on so many things in their young lives, but maybe …

My initial question to whoever was first in each group was the same: what colour is the Sun? It came as a surprise to everyone that it wasn’t the yellow they all used in their artwork: “It’s white!” was invariably the answer I got. Once everyone in the group had seen it we were able to talk briefly about the Sun’s colour and texture; the shell of a chicken’s egg was our working analogy. (For more detail on the nuanced topic of the Sun’s colour please see my earlier post on the subject, here.) In addition, several of the more observant pupils challenged my contention that three sunspots were visible – that’s all we could see from the raw Dwarf’s image – and declared that there were four. Brilliant: objective observation and the courage to defend it. I truly hope they continue in that vein; it bodes well for the future.

This is the view through my Dwarf3, post-processed when I got home to remove the annoying colouration added by the Dwarf’s solar filter and so that I could identify and label the active regions. (I have been meaning to replace their stock filter with something neutral, akin to the filter I made for the other telescope used that morning: a Skywatcher 72ed refractor fitted with a Baader solar film filter – see my earlier post, here, for details.)

As a parting gift I gave each of them a pair of eclipse-viewing glasses and told them about the partial eclipse that will be visible over the UK in August, during their school summer holidays. In fact, there will be two in August 2026 (see here):

• 2nd August; the partial eclipse will begin around 9am BST. It will reach maximum at 10am and end around 11am. At maximum roughly 45% of the Sun will be in shadow.
• 12th August; this partial eclipse will almost be total, with around 90% of the Sun being obscured by the Moon at the maximum. It'll begin at 6.17pm BST, with maximum at 7.13pm.

The glasses came with repeated warnings about not looking directly at the Sun without proper safety equipment. (These were the solar viewing glasses I managed to get at Astrofest earlier in the year, which I wrote about here.) Furthermore, I made the point that if the glasses were damaged in any way they shouldn’t be used. At this point one young person declared that he’d therefore definitely not be showing them to his brother 😉.

I’d love to go back after dark someday and help run – with friends from my local astronomy society – a stargazing evening; maybe next Winter when it gets dark early and there’s a clear sky, so that the pupils can bring their parents/carers with them. However, that’s in the hands of the school. In the meantime, of one thing I am certain: Sir David Attenborough would be proud of them.