Follow these links to some of the useful and interesting astronomy locations around the internet. Please let us know if you find any of these links not working, or also if you would like to suggest a link to be added to this page.
Google Group to Join and Visit
Feel free to post your photos, news events, questions & more
Members' pages
- Graham Blow is a member and local photographer, who has several collections of aurora photos, including these ones. Graham is also Director of the RASNZ Occultation Secction.
- Edwin Rod @ Screenrevolution email: laintal@gmail.com
- NZ Astro Chat @ Google
- Astronomy Guide - Andrew Dallow
Featured sites
- SKYDOME Observatory / Astronomy Adventures.
Astronomy Adventures (NZ) offers you an unforgettable visual adventure in the night sky. Based at Baylys Beach, Northland, New Zealand, we offer you the opportunity to view the stars through a large computerised telescope. See* craters on the Moon, the satellites of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, the phases of Venus, as well as countless star clusters, globular clusters, and galaxies. Marvel at the Milky Way, our very own Galaxy. All viewed from the superbly dark skies of our Northland location, away from both light and air pollution. more.. - [ * Weather permitting. Objects vary according to the time of year and of month.]
- Galaxy Te Korurangi is a New Zealand based astronomy magazine for children. It is packed with stories, cartoons, puzzles, experiments, what's in the night sky, Maori astronomy and other information. The magazine is published four times a year and is available with both single and family subscriptions.Check out the website for a selection of articles, puzzles and children's contributions, or download a free preview copy. (1.7MB pdf)
- SpaceInfo.com.au will be bringing you news and information from the fascinating fields of astronomy and space exploration. Because they're based in Australia, naturally they'll be focusing quite a bit on news from this region.
- SpaceWeather.com has real-time information about what's going on in the Solar System right now. If you're interested in meteor showers, aurora or other types of event that often occur on short notice, this site is very useful to return to regularly.
- Here you can enter any position on the Earth, and immediately be provided with details of how, where and when to find many of the brighter artificial satellites as they fly overhead.
- Google Sky also lets you look at high resolution astrophotographs down to about magnitude 20 and like Google Earth lets you explore the neighbourhood. At low resolution it also shows constellations. It also has the ability to view the universe at different wavelengths.
- The digitized sky survey allows you to enter the Right Ascention and Declination position of any point in the sky and get an image of that part of the sky, generated from photographic plates taken by the Palomar and UK Schmidt telescopes.
- Astronomy Picture of the Day features a new astronomy picture every day, complete with an explanation from an expert in the field. It's a vey good site to visit daily if you want to increase your knowledge about astronomy a bit at a time. Consider setting it as your personal homepage that your browser stars on.
- A usefull place to Buy Sell or Exchange astronomical items.
Email groups
If you're a society member, also check out the society announcements list. Some of the society observing groups also have their own internal email lists.
- This list caters to the discussion and announcements of any astronomy related issues for New Zealanders.Feel free to post your photos, news events, questions & more
Societies and Organisations
If you live elsewhere in New Zealand and want to contact a more local society, you may wish to browse the local society page of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. It has information and full contact details for lots of local and specialised astronomical societies around New Zealand.
- This is the site of the national society of New Zealand. Be sure to look here for an excellent night sky guide compiled by Brian Loader. The society exists as an entity in itself, but also contains several subsections.
- Aurora and Solar section
- Occultation section
- Astrophotography Section
- Double Star section
- Variable Star section
- Comet and Minor Planet section
- Dark Sky Group
- Education section
- The New Zealand Radioscience Group was formed in 1996, originating from several enthusiastic members within the Wellington Society. It promotes the learning about and research with radioscience technology.
Localised societies
- Auckland Astronomical Society
- Canterbury Astronomical Society
- Hamilton Astronomical Society
- Northland Astronomical Society
- Phoenix Astronomical Society
- Southland Astronomical Society
- Tauranga Astronomical Society
International societies
- Fight the light! Find out the sorts of things you can do to get revenge against light pollution and alert those responsible for it's tragic consequences.
- The Astronomical Society of Australia is the organisation of professional astronomers in Australia. The society also runs an encompassing general astronomy website, called Australian Astronomy.
Non-astronomical societies
- The Royal Society of NZ is affiliated with the Wellington Astronomical Society, and aims to promote Science and Technology. RSNZ holds regular public seminars, and all WAS members have the right to attend.
- For anyone who likes critical thinking.
- New Zealand Spaceflight Association
Observatories
- Situated above Wellington College, the Gifford Observatory was recently the subject of a restoration project through the Gifford Observatory Trust. Its current purpose primarily lies with education and being available for students to use, however it is also commonly used by members of the Wellington Astronomical Society.
- The Carter Observatory is officially New Zealand's national observatory. Located at the top of Wellington's Botanical Gardens, regular planetarium shows and observing nights are offered. The staff of the observatory also provide astronomy-related educational courses.
- Situated at Lake Tekapo, Mt John is the research observatory of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Canterbury University.
- Established in the 1950's, the main observatory of the Canterbury Astronomical Society is located west of Christchurch.
- Auckland Stardome
- Muriwai Beach Observatory
- John Drummond's Possum Observatory
Academic
- Victoria University of Wellington Astrophysics Group
- Canterbury University Department of Physics and Astronomy
Other New Zealand websites and pages of interest
- Garry Telford, of the Southland Astronomical Society, maintains his own astronomy website.
- Ken Ring is a private citizen of New Zealand who claims to be able to accurately predict the weather years in advance by studying positions and events of the Sun and Moon, and produces almanacs that detail upcoming weather. In this article (part 1, part 2 and part 3), published in the November and December 2004 and April 2005 issues of the Auckland Astronomical Society's journal, Bill Keir examines and refutes Mr Ring's methods, discussing how they are not accurate or scientific at all.
Scientific news publications and information sources
Astronomy software
- Skymap is an excellent shareware astronomical package written by astronomers, for astronomers, that comes recommended by several of our members. Emphasis is heavily on accuracy.
