While in secondary school, my friend John Caffrey and I entered and won the Senior category of the 'Irish Young Astronomers of the Year' competition back in 1991, as part of the 200th Anniversary celebrations for the Armagh Observatory. This was a one-off national competition to observe Jupiter's four Galilean moons over a two month period. From here, we had to plot their orbits and prove Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion.
As part of the prizes, there was a ceremony at the Armagh Observatory, and a trip to Jodrell Bank in Manchester, one of the world's largest radio telescopes.
Fast forward to 2017, and John had contacted the Armagh Observatory to see if our winning competition project entry still existed and after some searching, they found it which was great to hear - we hope to visit them again to see it, and also excited to hear that it is being digitized and added to their archives.
Meanwhile I managed to get an updated picture from the front of the Observatory, 26 years later! (I'll get other pic in 2043!)
| 1991 | 2017 |
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John's two youngest daughters, Ellen and Chloe also had a blast at the Armagh Planetarium (which is well worth a visit!)
