Star Adoption Tours

Our star adoption program provides a unique gift and is a way to recognise a family member or friend through the adoption of a star. All available stars in the program are between the magnitudes -1 and 4.9 (visible to the naked eye) or 5.0 and 7.9 (visible in binoculars), all in the Southern Hemisphere. The individual star adoption package includes:

A certificate (suitable for framing) with star name and coordinates, and the duration and purpose of the adoption.

Private star viewing night for the recipient and 3 guests within 12 months that include several other seasonal objects and will be scheduled when your chosen star is available at a suitable time for viewing

A planisphere (a device to show what constellations and stars are in the sky at any time)

Star charts and coordinates showing where the star is located in the night sky, as well as being shown how to use these at the star viewing night

Please note: Perth Observatory’s Star Adoption program doesn’t offer international naming rights to the star as there are no internationally recognised naming rights to the stars. The program is run by the Perth Observatory Volunteer Group Inc, and the income goes towards the Observatory’s not for profit, public outreach program.

All Systems Go for the James Webb Space Telescope

By Jodie Sims

Christmas Day 2021, the global astronomy, engineering, and greater science community all collectively held their breath as the much-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took its place on the launch pad ready to blast off from the Kourou space port in French Guiana folded up like an intricate piece of origami and sat inside the payload bay of an Ariane 5 rocket.

A monumental collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), this would be the culmination of 24 years of dedication and hard work, with some 1200 skilled scientists, engineers, and technicians from 14 countries contributing to the design and build of this modern-day photon collecting masterpiece.

A smooth launch was not only crucial for the future operational success of the JWST, but it also held an emotional significance for all those that had spent decades and whole careers working to reach this point. Any catastrophic event during launch would be devastating.

The long pathway to the launch pad started in 1989 at a workshop held at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. A year before the launch of Hubble Space Telescope. The workshop group proposed the build of a telescope that could see in the near-to mid-infrared red wavelengths of the spectrum, most of which Hubble was unable to see. This would give the advantage of viewing objects further and fainter than ever seen before.

The project finally gained the go ahead in 1996. Initially named the ‘Next Generation Space Telescope’ it wasn’t until 2002 that it received its official name fittingly as a tribute to James Edwin Webb. Webb was the 2nd Administrator of NASA and oversaw the most seminal first crewed missions of the Mercury and Gemini programs and held the position up to the beginning of the Apollo era.