




19 March, 2017
28 February, 2017
9 February, 2017
Great evening with over 100 children and parents at Ash Primary School last night. We had 4 scopes on the go so the queues were not too long. Bud, Ken, Jan, Chris and Ron had a good time too.
Despite a lot of cloud, we had great views of Venus, Mars, and the moon and were treated to a bright overhead pass of the ISS which caused much excitement.
Thanks to the Chair of the PTA Jenny Bridge for inviting us and for the welcome drinks and snacks.
23 January, 2017
19 January, 2017
We had a great start to our year with this meeting. We welcomed several guests and it was good to help some of them get to grips with their telescopes.
Bob, Pete, Ron and Bill gave short talks on the theme of ‘How it moves’. Just to give a flavour of what was covered, topics included along the way, the relative motion of stars, the meaning of sidereal time, the discovery of exo-planets by the induced motion of their stars, and the use of the relatively new Polemaster to counteract the movement of the earth when imaging. We were left in no doubt that we live on a constantly wobbling and twitching planet amongst a sea of moving objects.
After the break, Bob presented his object(s) of the month in the constellation Monoceros and Arthur concentrated on the constellation Auriga.
Pete, Jan, Gordon and Bill finished off an enjoyable evening with some of their excellent images. Jan’s first deep sky shot taken of the Andromeda Galaxy using a 150-600 Sigma lens was really impressive.
Many thanks to all for helping set up and clear away and especially to Zena, Annabelle and Mike and the kitchen volunteers who did a great job.
At our next meeting on February 15th, Graham Bryant’s talk will be ‘Pluto; from myth to discovery and New Horizons.
Look forward to seeing you then.
8 January, 2017
Here’s a link to an interesting article about a legal ruling in the US against the use of blue rich LED lighting. Might it have implications for the Uk?