| Beobachter: | Anneliese Haika |
| Datum: | 21. / 23. 09. 2003 |
| Zeit: | |
| Ort: | Malta |
| Instrument: | 12,7 cm Maksutov-Cassegrain |
| Bedingungen: |
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| Bericht: | From September 18 to 25 I spent a week in Malta, taking students of mine on an English-learning week. Günther Eder, who knows several amateur astronomers from Malta, set up the contact with the Astronomical Society of Malta (ASM) and they invited me on two occasions. On Sunday evening (Sept. 21) the club's secretary, Alex Pace, picked me up and drove me to Dingli Cliffs, where I met Tony Tanti, president of ASM, and his girlfriend Josette. Alex had brought a 12,7 cm Maksutov-Cassegrain with him and we did some star-gazing. Mars, our starting point, was of course much higher up in the sky than in Vienna. The polar cap was easy to detect and several dark spots could be seen. Dingli Cliffs is situated at the south coast of Malta, so looking south the sky was very dark. Scorpio and the Teapot were high above the horizon and the Miky Way was beautiful and bright up to Cygnus. Looking north across the island was a completely different story: the sky was as light polluted as in Vienna and I couldn't believe the contrast between the two halves of the sky - here a naked-eye M8 and there lights and just the brightest stars visible. We looked at several deep sky objects like M4, M8, M7, M57. After about one and a half hours we ended the observations with a second look at Mars. On Tuesday (Sep. 23) I was invited to give a talk about amateur astronomy in Vienna at the meeting of ASM. The club meets at the house of the German-Maltese Circle in Valetta, the capital of Malta. The German-Maltese-Circle is situated in one of the old city-houses, probably dating back to the time of the Knights of St. John, when the city La Valetta was built. The meeting took place in a beautiful state-room with stars painted on the ceiling and glass chandeliers. I felt a bit out of time, switching on my laptop there. About 20 people came to the meeting. Tony Tanti started with a presentation of prizes. Four children received prizes in a Mars drawing competition, which ASM had organised. Then I presented a littele astronomical sightseeing tour of Vienna and talked about the activities of WAA. Some of the members of ASM had already been to Austria. They had tried to watch the total eclipse of 1999 from Mariazell. After my presentation we talked about our two clubs. In many ways the activities of ASM are similar to ours. They organise public observation evenings and they also had to cope with an enormous Mars-mania on August 27. Like WAA, the Maltese club has no observatory. Detailled information about their activities can be found on the ASM homepage. I would like to thank Tony Tanti and the members of ASM for their hospitality and I am sure this was not my last visit to this beautiful island. |