Stardome

The Year 7s clustered together under the dome on the 29th of October, looking up at the night sky which was streaked with stars and planets. We were gathered to explore the galaxy from Stardome, a large, inflated, covering, with images projected onto it, letting us see the wonders of our universe from the classroom. We were lucky enough to have Richard Parkinson from the company Stardome to guide us through the solar system and various planets.

I think we can all agree that the experience was amazing, we were zooming from star cluster to star cluster with a speed that made it seem like we were all in space exploring. Personally, I found the constellations, the up to scale depictions of different stars and the contrasting of various stars to be particularly eye-catching. We looked at how constellations like Orion’s Belt could be used as ways to navigate and how the stars can indicate the change of seasons, an example being Matariki. Many stars which were at varying levels of heat and age were displayed, giving us a mind-blowing view of small, young stars and the giants that burn with a bright red colour!

We all had an amazing time, oohing and ahhing every time a new star, constellation and planet was shown. It was also a lot of fun to experiment with how the dome echoed back our voices, making it seem like there were speakers hidden in the thin, padded walls! A big thanks to Mrs Thompson for arranging Stardome to come and for giving us this opportunity. We had a blast.