Stars close in on Foxton
A Foxton community centre is making an astronomical return after lockdown with an exhibition of deep-space photographs to celebrate Matariki.
Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom’s first exhibition after reopening, Matariki – Deep Space: A View of the Stars and Beyond, opens today.
The collection of 25 otherworldly images were all photographed by astronomer and Massey University professor Stephen Chadwick.
The photos of the Matariki stars, galaxies, and the colourful remains of exploded stars will be available to view, free of charge, for the next three months.
Chadwick’s work is regularly exhibited at astronomy events far and wide, but he felt privileged to have it on display closer to home as drawcard to bring people back to the centre after lockdown.
The Himatangi resident said there was great serendipity in celebrating Matariki, just as everyone was reemerging from their bubbles and enjoying the wider world again. ‘‘The beginning of the Ma¯ori New Year, this time around, coincides with new beginnings for the entire country.’’
Chadwick said he hoped the images would change the way some people looked and thought about the universe, and people’s place in it. ‘‘The psychedelic colours of our universe are striking. And the worlds beyond our solar system and the Milky Way are not only vast, but billions of years old and ever-changing.’’
The exhibition features amix of historic and modern technology. Chadwick captures his imagery in away that was impossible 20 years ago.
For the past 14 years, he has taken pictures of deep space using the same lightsensitive technology used in the Hubble Space Telescope, that is now available in consumer-grade digital cameras. Chadwick puts his telescope on a moving mount, and the camera allows the rig to track the movement of the stars as it takes photos.
The historic part of the exhibition features the 1890s telescope from the Foxton Beach observatory.