Each year we welcome several students from Germany and we were honoured and delighted to receive a donation from the family of Peter Bartel who wanted to show their appreciation of all that their son had gained during his time at the College. Peter, a Sixth Former last year, is an enthusiastic stargazer and spent many an enjoyable hour searching the night sky with Head of Physics, Adrian Baker, and fellow astronomers. It seemed only fitting, therefore, that the donation was used to purchase a powerful telescope with state-of-the-art technology (Meade’s ETX 125 Premier Edition for those who like to know!). 

Mr Baker describes it as a fantastic tool: “You just pick what you want to see, press a button and it automatically finds it for you. Instead of spending hours searching, it means there’s more time for observing and learning. Or, if you don’t know what to look at, it will automatically select the best objects in the sky for that particular time and location.”

On hearing how the donation had been spent, Peter wrote, “… We all totally agree with your decision to spend the money on the telescope and we hope that you and many students will have a great time exploring the ‘wonders of the night sky’…. Hearing from you brought back many very nice memories of last year and the whole time at BSC.”