Visions of the Universe

Our second-last day in London but I couldn't have felt less like doing anything. Didn't get much sleep last night and I had a headache. But there was something that I really wanted to do, and that was see the Visions of the Universe exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Luckily it's easy for us to get to Greenwich, so we headed over in the afternoon. It was even better than I expected, truly enthralling. It explores the relationship between astronomical observation and photography and there are some breathtaking images. It is humbling that humans have built machines capable of capturing these pictures. I love the Hubble pictures of deep space, but my favourite ones were the various images of Saturn and its moons taken by Cassini and a series of pictures of last year's transit of Venus. I read an excellent book about the history of measuring the event during last year's transit. Orla enjoyed it too, as we had a children's guide to help engage her interest. Her favourite things were a time-lapse video of the phases of the moon, photos of the surface of the Sun and a computer animation of the Earth/Moon/Sun orbits to show how a total eclipse happens. She drew a picture of what you'd need to take with you on an expedition to Mars - a rucksack with a smiley face on it, with fruit and vegetables and sweeties in it; a jug of water and a helmet, to stop sneezes because Mars is dusty. She also persuaded me to let her go to the playground for a little while: "we're going back to Scotland soon and it's very far away and I won't be able to come here again for a very long time". Can't really argue with that.

The exhibition is on until 15th September. If you get the chance to, then go.