CHAMÄLEON + ONJALA OBSERVATORY
A planetary walk for Rooisand Lodge - July 2018
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A scaled model of the solar system and the Rooisand Voetstoots 2018.

©: The pictures on this page were taken by Cornelia, Nicole, KAT, Fahrbach and Team Chamäleon. More pictures can be found here.

All images can be enlarged by clicking the thumbnails ...

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Rooisand Voetstoots 2018 - to the moon and back

The Rooisand Planet Walk - a scaled model of the solar system

At Rooisand Lodge an event called Voetstoots has been taking place for years in the Namibian winter. Voetstoots is Afrikaans and means "wonder bag". The event is usually held on a weekend is associated with a bicycle rally.

The idea for a Planet Walk as a supplement to the Rooisand observatory was born in 2017. The opening event for the Walk should at the weekend of th e2018 Voetsoots in congruence with the total lunar eclipse on 27 July and the simultaneous Mars opposition.

The planning and calculations were carried out by the Chameleon team, the owner of the lodge was responsible for the design.

The Walk starts at the lodge with the Sun and ends at the observatory with the planet Neptune. The Walk has a length of 2.34 kilometres and therefore a scale of
1 : 1.927 500 000. With this scale, the Sun has a diameter of 0.7 meters and each step of the visitor (approx. 1 meter) corresponds to 2 million kilometres in space.
The scaled planets are located at the end of an arched structure that symbolizes the orbit of the planet around the Sun. For each planet there are two text tables in German and English with the most important data of the planet.

The way ends at the observatory with the planet Neptune. Additionally there are two information boards with the data and the distance of the NASA probe Voyager I and the nearest fixed star Alpha Centauri.

In addition there is a brochure describing the objects of our solar system in detail. The Planetary Path was inaugurated on 28 July 2018 as part of Voetstoots 2018 with around 80 invited guests.

 
    Sundiameter 0.7 Meter
 
Trail to the observatory The Arc symbolizes planetary orbit Saturn and Earth in comparison    
    Earth and Moon
 
Jupiter Info board Jupiter as an example Neptun, Voyager I + Alpha Centauri 
Download the publication of the Planet Path Rooisand.

Please note that the download is only permitted for private use. Both books are subject to international copyright and infringements will be prosecuted. File size 17 Mby each.

pdf- download (german language): Planetenwanderweg Rooisand - ein maßstäbliches Model des Sonnensystems.

pdf- download (english language): The Planetary Walk At Rooisand - A Scale Model Of Our Solar System.

 
The total lunar eclipse

The arrival of the guests started on Friday afternoon, shortly before the beginning of the total lunar eclipse on 27 July 2018. As the lodge does not have enough guest rooms, many guests spend the night in comfortable tents; for Namibians this is the normal case for overnight stays in their own country.

While one of the team (Paech) stayed on Onjala to watch total lunar eclipse with the lodge guests, Hofmann and Lucius travelled to Rooisand to look
after the guests there. The eclipse was mainly observed with the large 125mm Vixen double glass of the lodge. The eclipse was mainly observed with the large 125mm Vixen double glass of the lodge. The image on the top right shows the Moon, Mars and the Milky Way in front of the Rooisand dome, taken in the middle of totality. Left: Palms, Moon and Mars.
 
   Camping
 
Camping Sleeping under the Southern Cross Moonrise and Earth Shadow   
   Lunar and Martian Rise
 
Moonrise Short before totality Totality   
Rooisand Voetstoots - the bicycle rally

The rally started on Saturday morning around 06:00 o'clock with 5 different teams. Because of the heat during the day despite the winter time, the event had to be finished until noon.

Due to the astronomical theme of the rally, the participants had to cope with numerous tasks on the way. Among other things there was a planetary drawing competition for the children, the adults met aggressive aliens, had to deal with a crashed and a radioactively contaminated UFO drone, met moon astronauts and had to hand in a list with 10 answered questions about the planets at the top of the observatory.
Credit points were awarded for all individual tasks, and the analysis was done in the evening. The award ceremony was followed by a remarkable party.
 
  The hosts, Yrida + Axel Dainat
 
Axel starts the Voetstoots 2018 planetary drawing contest Team planning   
   ... on tour
... the contaminated UFO Drone ... Break for the epidemic team end of the bicycle rally   
Houston - we have a problem, let´s party

After an extensive lunch break (Paech from Team Chameleon had arrived at Rooisand in the meantime) dinner was prepared, then all prizes and certificates of participation were handed out to the guests by the hosts Yrida and Axel.

With the theme of Voetstoots 2018 - to the moon and back - there was a really cool costume party until well after midnight. Anyone who try to ordering a drink at the bar - without to say "Houston we have a problem" was simply ignored :-) .

The team chameleon was quite surprised by the costume party, so that we could only buy quite silly Minions caps 2 days before. The last picture shows the team Chameleon (Dirk, Franz and Wolfgang from left to right).
   Preparing the dinner
 
award ceremony award ceremony certificate of participation   
   award ceremony
 
... Franz ... wolfgang Dirk + Hit Radio Namibia   
   Yrida at the award ceremony
 
... the NASA Astronaut ... and the children but now - let´s party   
   let´s party - Elke and Nicole let´s party let´s party Dirk, Franz + Wolfgang   

 
Sun Moon Solar System DeepSky Widefield Miscellaneous Spec. Projects

 
All Images and all Content are © by Wolfgang Paech, Franz Hofmann + Dirk Lucius