Come along and help us celebate Matariki on Thursday 4th July from 3:30pm – 6:30pm at the Memorial Hall. Kaikoura Dark Sky will be in the hall with our 2 Stellarium VR headsets for you to enjoy as well as puzzles and colouring in.
Matariki is a cluster of about 1000 stars, 440 light years away so we are seeing it as it was 440 years ago. Naked-eye we can see 7 – 9 of the biggest brightest hot blue stars. Matariki is in our Winter solstice morning sky and to locate Matariki, find the 3 belt stars of Orion, Tautoru. Look to the left to find the orange coloured red giant star Aldebaran, Taumata-kuku, among the Hyades cluster, Te Kokotā, an upside down V of stars. To the left is the bright planet Jupiter, Hine-i-tīweka or Pareārau. About the same distance from Aldebaran to Jupiter to the left of Jupiter is the small cluster of stars the Pleiades, Matariki.
The Stellarium VR headset will allow you to identify stars, constellations, planets, satellites , and other deep sky objects in real time in the sky above you.
– View an accurate night sky simulation of stars and planets for any date, time and location.
– Dive in a collection of many stars, nebulas, galaxies, star clusters and other deep sky objects.
– Zoom on realistic Milky Way and Deep Sky Objects images.
– Discover how people living in other regions of the planet see the stars by selecting the shapes and illustrations of the constellations for many sky cultures.
– Track artificial satellites, including the International Space Station.
– Simulate landscape and atmosphere with realistic sunrise, sunset and atmosphere refraction.
– Discover 3D rendering of the major solar system planets and their satellites.
