The biggest and the brightest planets and the stars will be coming to Cullyhanna in South Armagh on the evening of Saturday 11 April, when the Irish Astronomical Association will be bringing their powerful telescopes to the Community Centre at Cullyhanna.
This is a wonderful place to view the night sky, well away from the light pollution from towns and cities. Given clear skies, the public will be able to marvel at Venus, the brilliant, beautiful Evening Star, and Jupiter, the giant planet of our Solar System, big enough to hold 1,000 Earths, together with its four bright moons.
We will also be showing beautiful coloured double stars, star clusters like the Pleiades or Seven Sisters, and the amazing Orion Nebula where stars and planets are now being born. Also marvel at the incredible Andromeda Galaxy, the big sister of our own Milky Way Galaxy, containing at least 200 thousand million stars! It's so far away that its light, travelling at 300,000 kilometres per second, takes 2.5 million years to reach us. And yet you can see it with your own eyes – the most distant thing you can ever see without a telescope!
We will also be presenting fascinating and entertaining starshows in the Stardome portable planetarium (courtesy of Armagh Planetarium) an exhibition including meteorites (rocks which have come to Earth from Outer Space).
And there will be a display of telescopes and binoculars, and you can see and get advice on what type would be best to get.
There will also be a Help Section – if you already have a telescope, but need help on setting it up and using it, bring it along and our experts will help you.
So even if it is cloudy, there will be plenty to see and do.
Start time: 7.00 p.m.
Admission is free, but admission for the Stardome shows must be booked in advance, at www.ringofgullion.com, or Email: info@ringofgullion.org, tel. 028 3082 8594.
The location is 54d 7' 29" N, 6d 34' 42" W. It's on Tullynavall Rd, the road from Cullyhanna towards Dundalk
The best route is to –
1. Take the A25 Camlough Road from Newry.
2. Keep on that A25 road through Camlough and on towards Newtownhamilton.
3. After you go though the little village of Belleek (NOT the one in Fermanagh, for those with Satnav!), take 3rd on left into CARRICKROVADDY ROAD.
4. Proceed along that road, (ignoring a fork to the left) for about 2.5 / 3m.
5. At a sort of staggered X-roads at a farmhouse, keep straight on (i.e. a left & immediate right)
6. Just after that, turn LEFT at junction with main A29 road.
7. Then in about 0.5m take NEXT RIGHT – DRUMALT RD.
8. Follow this a short distance towards Cullyhanna village
9. Entering the village, take First Left – that's TULLYNAVALL Rd.
10. The CC is a short distance along that road, as you leave the village, on the Right.
Cullyhanna will probably be signposted once you are through Belleek.