Archive for October, 2009

Dark Skies

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

IYA 2009 Dark Skies badge

Sunday 25th October 2009

There was a nice article in the Times yesterday, about Galloway Forest Park in Scotland. Apparently, it’s one of the darkest places in Europe. From the article:

Next month, the International Dark-Sky Association, based in Tucson, Arizona, will convene to ratify the report of its inspectors in Britain. Final tests, which begin tonight in the shrouded hills of Glen Trool, are almost certain to confirm a first batch of readings that registered parts of the vast and lonely forest at Bortle 2 on the international darkness scale.

Bortle 1 represents the darkest possible sky, only really possible in the middle of the ocean, or some similarly remote place!

BAA “Back to Basics” Workshop

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

Saturn setting behind the Moon

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Bedford School and the Bedford Astronomical Society (BAS) are hosting a “Back to Basics” workshop at Bedford School.

Although more advanced BAA “Observers” workshops have been held in our region, principally at the Open University, this is the first B2B to visit Bedford. For the past few years these events have been staged around the country and proved to be very popular and successful.

An excellent programme has been arranged at the modest cost of £8 to BAA members and £10 to non-members, which includes refreshments and 3-course lunch. Please note that societies affiliated to the BAA are entitled to send ONE delegate at the member’s rate.

Places must be booked in advance via the BAA Office. You can download a copy of the information sheet/booking form here. Please note that the closing date for bookings is 25th September.

Susan Conway – “Martian Gulleys”

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

Wednesday 7th October 2009

Planetary science came to Papworth in the form of a talk by Open University researcher Susan Conway. She has been studying the mysterious gullies that were revealed in high resolution images by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft.

These surface features support the idea that water has been present on Mars, but exactly how these features have formed in the distant past of the red planet is unknown. To try and find out, she has looked closer to home at similar geological features on Earth, in Iceland, England and elsewhere. Using modelling techniques, she showed that at least some of the Martian gullies were probably formed by movement of sediment down slopes in a similar way to that found in Iceland. She has successfully reproduced these phenomena in a sophisticated sandpit enclosed in a vacuum chamber and chilled with liquid nitrogen. This is apparently the first time this has been tried in the laboratory and is helping to answer the question of whether surface water (in the form of ice) was present when the Martian gullies were formed. Water of course means the possibility of life, but that’s another story. The Club is grateful to Susan for her fascinating talk.