Hamurana Skies Limited: Astronomy Experiences

08/01/2025

Closing for Full Moon. The moon is at its fullest and brightest on Sunday which is not the best for astronomy. We are going to close the guided astronomy tours from tomorrow Friday 10 until Wednesday 15 January next week. We will be open for business again on Thursday 16

Full Moon, Phases, Seeing,

03/01/2025

https://www.accuweather.com/en/nz/rotorua/246960/astronomy-weather/246960

Your localized Astronomy weather forecast, from AccuWeather, provides you with the tailored weather forecast that you need to plan your day's activities

02/01/2025

ASTRONZ have a bunch of brand new 6" Dobsonians for just over $545. These are great quality first telescopes for young and not so young astronomy enthusiast or even a great portable addition to any telescope collection.

Andrew had ONE job, and now we’re swimming in telescopes. Save us (and our warehouse) by grabbing a 6" Dobsonian for just $545. Clear skies, better deals, and one slightly embarrassed Andrew. 😅

https://astronz.nz/products/astronz-6-dobsonian-telescope

01/01/2025

Our smallest telescope. An 8inch newtonian with a short tube (700mm) set up on our Ioptron Az Pro Mount. The telescope is actually built for astrophotography. A coma corrector is useful when observing with these short tubes.

The Ioptron AZ is a level and go set up that orientates itself by gps and has a very nice user friendly operating system.

Together this telescope and mount are very portable for working away from home and when conditions are not ideal like in an urban environment or when the weather is a bit touch and go.

Sometimes it just nice to use a lighter less fuss setup.

29/12/2024

And when we aren't looking at the night sky this is just up the road.

23/12/2024

It's was looking like a great night and we ended up on another 3:30am all nighter. We had no guest and on nights like this we sometimes concentrate on looking for interesting harder to find objects. The Centaurus A Galaxy which is an example of the collision between two galaxies was in the sky later on. We were also able to observe the very small Southern Ring Planetary Nebula (Caldwell 74) which is how the end of the star life cycle looks for smaller stars like our own Sun https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-caldwell-catalog/caldwell-74/

21/12/2024

https://hamuranaskies.co.nz/experiences/guided-astronomical-tours/

Our core business is the guided astronomical tours immediately behind our house in a spacious and gently sloping lawn area. There are positions usually for two but up to three telescopes which are computer controlled and lit by dim red lighting. The duration of the tour is about ninety minutes.  We...

21/12/2024

Dawn Moon with Tuis at Hamurana Skies: Astronomy Experiences. This video was filmed through an 8 inch Classic Cassegrain on a tracking mount with a Lumix G90 camera. We are located twenty minutes north of Rotorua and offer guided astronomy tours and accommodation for experienced astronomy enthusiast. hamuranaskies.co.nz

19/12/2024

This is the beautiful Orion Nebula very much as it appears through our telescopes at Hamurana Skies. The Orion nebula is in the star shape known to most kiwis as the 'pot'.
The Orion Nebula or Messier 42 is 7500 light years from the Earth and 12 light years across. It is one of the closest star birthing regions to the Earth. The bright areas are vast clouds of glowing hydrogen gas that are ionised by the solar winds from young blue giant stars that have been born in the nebula.
To see startling close views of the Orion Nebula and more come and see us at Hamurana Skies. We are twenty minutes north of Rotorua under dark rural skies. When the weather is right we are open for business and taking bookings. Please go on to our website to book. , , , , , , ,

18/12/2024

In the Southern Hemisphere we are lucky enough to be able to see with the naked eye the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds which are dwarf galaxies that orbit our own galaxy the Milky Way. These two galaxies are relatively close at 200,000 and 160,000 light years away from the Earth
More distant galaxies that are millions of years away present a greater challenge as even though these are huge objects that may be hundreds of thousands of light years across, the distances to these galaxies from the Earth are astronomically huge. Light travels 299792 kilometres per second which adds up to 9.46 trillion (9.46 x 10¹²) kilometres travelled in just one year. Light from many galaxies left on its journey to us millions of years ago, some around the time that the dinosaurs went extinct on the Earth.
The images of galaxies shown here are from Stellarium which is a freely available planetarium software that offers detailed live views of astronomical objects in the sky at any location in the world. These images from Stellarium are like the images that we see of these galaxies through our telescopes at Hamurana.
Galaxies that we have observed at Hamurana include –

• The String of Pearls Galaxy (Caldwell 72, NGC 55) is approximately 6.5 million years from the Earth and easily located by star hopping from the star Ankaa in the head of the Phoenix constellation.
• The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (Caldwell 70, NGC 300) is a classic spiral galaxy much like the Milky Way and is about 6.45 million light years from the Earth. The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy is between the Phoenix and Sculptor constellations and thought to be gravitationally bound to the Strings of Pearls galaxy.
• The Sculptor Galaxy (also known as the Silver Coin or Silver Dollar galaxy Caldwell 65, NGC 253) is 11.6 million light years away from the Earth. The Sculptor galaxy can be found between the Cetus and Sculptor constellations
• Centaurus A or the Hamburger Galaxy (Caldwell 77, NGC 5128) is thought to be an example of two galaxies that have collided. A dark dust lane protrudes from centre of this galaxy. The Hamburger Galaxy is approximately 16 million light years from the Earth and can be found by star hopping from Alpha Centauri (Rigel Kentaurus) binary star.
• Fornax A and B (NGC 1316 and NGC 1317) are 55 million years away from the Earth. These two galaxies along with others are visible from Hamurana in the spectacular Fornax Galactic cluster.

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13/12/2024

Looking for a gift? We offer gift vouchers for our guided astronomical tours under a dark rural sky twenty minutes north of Rotorua. See our website for details. https://hamuranaskies.co.nz/bookings/

13/12/2024

Hamurana Skies Astronomy Experiences are proud to be supporting Aotearoa Dive's Fundraiser Quiz to support Alex who's working towards his dream of becoming a Classified diver. , , , ,

04/12/2024

We have just got in from doing some astronomy outreach at a local primary school with colleagues from the local astronomical society.

Sometimes it is just good to give something back.

30/11/2024

The planets that are currently visible above Aotearoa New Zealand. Our Classic Cassegrain goto telescope is designed to give quality views of planets.

Choose tonight or another date and see which planets are shining in the sky above you or anywhere else.

28/11/2024

A conjunction ........ This went on to be a late session through to 2:00am.

27/11/2024

Our computer controlled 12 inch Dobsonian and 8 inch Cassegrain telescopes resting in the shade after being tuned and made ready for exploring the night sky.

26/11/2024

New Products: Hamurana Skies T-Shirts. The classic black t-shirt with our groovy logo on the front. Printed for us by a local business 'The Embroidery Company' right here in Rotorua.

Look cool, look smart, impress the masses. Buy a groovy Hamurana Skies Astronomy Experiences t-shirt.

The t-shirts can be purchased through our booking system while you are on site. , , , ,

26/11/2024

Jupiter and Mars along with deep sky objects like the impressive Orion Nebula, the startling 47 Tucanae Globular Cluster and very distant galaxies are presenting well in the January evening sky.
Start 2025 off with an amazing astronomical experience with Hamurana Skies. Our computer-controlled telescopes provide incredible close up views of distant celestial objects in a dark rural sky.
We offer guided astronomical tours twenty minutes north of Rotorua. Book here https://hamuranaskies.co.nz/bookings/ , , , ,