Competition for Astro clubs

[Meng Lee]

Hi all,

Need opinions and sharing of past experiences from all of you.

Recently I have been thinking about what are the school astro clubs doing. Do they have any aim to achieve? What level do they want to achieve?

Then I thought that if there is perhaps an astrophotography competition open to them, then they might strive higher. And during the prize ceremony or what, it can also be a symposium or sorts.

What are your past experiences, share with us on the possibility and feasability of it?

Thanks.

[zong]

I guess the biggest aim in school astro clubs nowadays: to survive. At least, those less well known. I am mentoring NJ Astro myself, and well, the intake every year is a struggle to stay as a club. If they are able to do that, the next step for them would be to attract more people into the field of astronomy itself.

As for astrophotography, I don't think it's really feasible in schools, at least secondary/JC schools. They have minimum budget, because schools now take a more pragmatic approach to "reward" those who bring back trophies and only give little attention to those that don't. Most schools' astro club budget would need at least 2 years before they can even buy a C8 setup, much less continue on to astrophotographic equipment. Poly astro clubs might have the budget, I'm not sure about that. Plus, astrophotography is a passion that takes a lot of time and effort (not to mention it's mostly late at night when they should be home/asleep). Not many of them will take it up.

If we are to promote astronomy in school, it would be more the light-hearted and less expensive aspects of it. Like appreciating the night sky naked-eye, having some lectures on basic astronomy that teaches them some physics/chemistry, etc. Even students are pragmatic nowadays..

In case you're wondering about competition, there are quite a few out there, going on the theme of astronomy itself, in general. There's the NTU-NUS astrochallenge, NYP astro quiz, RJ recently started one, NJ did hold one but stopped for a few years. It's frankly quite flooded given the astronomy population of Singapore.

[Meng Lee]

Hi, by the way, just some background information about me, I took part in the NUS-NTU challenge 10 years ago and this year RJ Astrigue, I was one of the judges.

My opinion is that there are too many quizzes around, and in my opinion they may have slightly deviated from the aim of promoting astronomy.

Why is the club is crisis of surviving? This is because the school wants to see results, like trophies as you said. Taking astrophotos is showing results, in fact may eventually become an exhibition (small one). I held one in AJC 10 years ago. I am saying its not impossible. Also think of trophies from Astrophoto competition.

I am not intending astrophoto like the quality that Remus takes. There can be different categories: Constellations, Digiscoping of planets and moon.....
Nowadays students have their own digital camera, you can do a lot with that. Also if you have done it before, you will see how engrossed are students when they take pictures through public scopes, rather than they sit at a corner and gossipping!

NUS can be an equipment base. Our department has equipment possibly available for loaning. In the organisation of the competition, NYP and NUSHS can co-ordinate.

Students are also pragmatic, they want pictures of planets and moon taken by themselves!

I hope I am making sense of my intention.

Thanks for reading.

[QuantumGravity]

Hi, I'm the er- re-founder of ACJC's astronomy society. We're doing pretty fine, considering that we just started off in March this year. Wasn't too hard to get it up and running since the school apparently has a C5 scope from a few years ago, but they locked it up in this room for over a year until I rediscovered it.

There's 3 quiz competitions each year for the secondary schools -- NYP's, RJC's and NTU-NUS's. They're all usually in the first half of the year, and from experience, the interest in astro dips down for the second half (probably due to exams) until the string of competitions start coming again in the following year. Maybe it's just me. Other significant events include the ANE Astro Camp held during the late-november period, RJC Astrigue Camp, Cosmocraft's annual M'sia trip... Nothing much for JCs and Polys so to say, but I guess we should be the ones organising stuffs.

Back to topic, my school's in the process of organising an astro event scheduled for late August actually. Can't say much details just of now, but rest assured, it won't be another quiz/camp. Will release details really soon though.

[branzzz]

being a person who has a deep interest in astronomy yet has never joined the school club on a formal basis, i can say that what the first two posters have said is true. as an outsider looking in, the general conception is that the astronomy club is plain boring. people mostly join in the first two sessions and realise they won't be able to view HST type images. i think the main goal has to be sustaining the newcomer's interest in some way. you can't expect to keep people in when the night's most exciting activity is...(!!!!!!)...learning to collimate a newtonian. i think you will need to present things in laymen terms. after all, the number of amatuer astronomers already existing in every freshmen batch is very low, sometimes they're nonexistant.

[Meng Lee]

Sorry for the about-to-appear-harsh comments.

I agree that we have to first present to the newbies astronomy in layman terms. But I disagree with trying to sustain the newcomer's interest. If they think that sleeping is a better activity, then I don't need such members. For the people who realised that they can't see HST images, then they lose interest, just leave it.

Quality of members is more important than quantity of members. In my opinion, if you spend too much time trying to think of very fun activities to retain the non-interested members, there will not be results produced, and therefore the club will be in danger of closing down.

Also, people with sufficiently deep interest in astronomy will not need you to sustain their interest. on the other hand, they will be turned off by those fun activities and leave the club.

Sorry I am a bit agaited over these despite managing a club 10 years ago.

[Area503]

I personally feel that it is a refreshing idea to organize an astrophotography competition. I mean, take a look at the recently concluded NTU-NUS astrochallenge, students are expected to know a lot of things. Among the things that they were tested on, there were mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, observation skills, presentation skills, etc. The level of the competition was a… well; I would honestly say that I couldn’t do more then half of the questions asked. In order for a student to excel in it, he or she must study as thou they are preparing for their ‘A’s or ‘O’ level exams (Is it still called ‘A’s and ‘O’s?)

An astrophotography competition would be refreshing for the students. For once they dun need to mug for the event. They just need basic skills, a camera, tripod and a lot of free time spent with friends in the cloudless starry night sky to take part. All you need to do is to set up a workshop to teach them basic astrophotography. Talking about workshops, if I managed to convince the next NUSAS committee there might be something in the upcoming Nov/Dec. Will update more if it’s going to happen.

I guess Zong is right about students becoming more and more pragmatic these days, and I agree that many people find astronomy boring and unpractical. It is disheartening to hear that NJC is struggling to exist due to a lack of members. I could still remember that in order to join PJC astronomy club 6 years ago, I had to take a quiz to be selected as a member due to the limited intake.

Since we touched on the topic of sustaining interest in astronomy, I believe Meng Lee might have mistaken branzz. I think branzz has a point in persenting things in layman terms and making it more interesting. A person who joins an astronomy club will have a certain amount of interest in the subject. The issue would be to find ways to ‘help’ them develop their interests further, i.e. improving on their quality. Imagine an amateur member’s first lecture in the club is “Space time and relativities.” It might lead them to believe that astronomy is for the nerdy and is kind of boring. Astronomy is different to different people. To some people they like the mathematics involved, others the complex physics theories behind the red or blue shift, but to me it is about getting like-minded friends to spend the night looking at the stars, with or without telescopes. I guess the challenge of running a club successfully is to cater to the different types of interest present in the club.

[Meng Lee]

My proposal is from my observation that members get much more engrossed into things when they try to take pics using their camera through the telescope.

And nowadays students have their own digital cameras and only need a steady hand. Budget wise it is very conservative. Last time I even take pictures through binoculars before also.

Oh, sorry about my misunderstanding. I strongly encourage taking care of the different interests of members. But I discourage worrying over uninterested members.

Anyway, I think NYP is interested in orgainising it. I will discuss with them.

[cantaresg]

I had talked to the quizmaster regarding this year's astro quiz. He told me that the calibre of the students are simply getting better, so the quiz questions cannot be as simple as " What is the brightest star in the night sky" anymore. Frankly, it is getting tougher and tougher to organise a theory-based astro quiz nowadays.

An astrophotography competition may be fresh, but I wonder how many students are really capable of taking astrophotos. Do you mean simple pictures like star trails? Or those that you have to do tracking?

[Airconvent]

Sadly, astronomy is not mainstream especially in today's PSP and X-box era.
I think it would have been more effective to subsume it under the Science Club and call it the Science and Astronomy Society. That way the right kind of members can be targetted. In addition, as suggested, a tie up with the photography club for astrophotography would also be good.
Singastro, being a neutral group can serve as a central point from which all these parties can meet. if there is sufficient demand, I can raise it to the admin team to create an Astro Club thread where the various clubs can post info or share ideas/events. Naturally they will also be able to tap from resources within singastro as well...