Archive for the ‘News’ Category
April Meeting Reminder
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
Tuesday 6th April 2010
Don’t forget that the April meeting is tomorrow evening, Wednesday 7th April. Peter Howell from the Cambridge Astronomical Association will present “Radio Astronomy for the Slightly Nervous”. He will explore the nature of radio astronomy and its origins, then show some simple home radio astronomy projects that will allow you to listen to the natural radio noises of our planet.
As usual the meeting will be held at 7.30pm in the Vinter Room, Vinter Close, Papworth Everard. Check out the Meetings page for a map.
February Meeting Reminder
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Monday 1st February 2010
Don’t forget that the February meeting is this coming Wednesday, 3rd February. Dr. Richard Salisbury from Thermoteknix will talk about thermal imaging cameras. Thermoteknix is a local company that built a camera for the NASA LCROSS mission to the Moon.
As usual the meeting will be held at 7.30pm in the Vinter Room, Vinter Close, Papworth Everard. Check out the Meetings page for a map.
Galileo video
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Monday 25th January 2010
David Mannion has placed the first of a series of videos on YouTube covering the history of astronomy, from Galileo to the present day. The video is entitled “Galileo and 400 Years of Telescopic Astronomy” and you can view it by clicking on the link.
January Meeting Reminder
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Wednesday 6th January 2009
Don’t forget that the January meeting is a week later than usual, on Wednesday 13th January.
Keith Tritton, president of the club and until recently with the Open University, will talk about extrasolar planets. The number of known extrasolar planets has now passed the 400 mark. How are they being found? What are these planets like? Will we ever find a twin to the Earth?
December Meeting Reminder
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
Sunday 29th November 2009
Don’t forget that the December meeting is this coming Wednseday (December 2nd) and will be a ‘Night Sky’ meeting.
Lee Sproats from Green-Witch in Dry Drayton will be bringing along some of their latest equipment for us to try out, and Ed Zanders will be showing us how to collimate a Newtonian scope using the Club’s laser collimating tool. If we have clear skies, this will all be tied in with an observing session!
Meetings Archive
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Thursday 19th November 2009
Details of every one of the Club meetings, since its inception in 1994 up to the present, are now logged in the Meetings Archive.
Enjoy!
Leonids and site restructuring
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Tuesday 17th November 2009
With the Leonids Meteor shower nearing its peak, I decided it was about time to re-organise the web site a little. We now have all the meeting reports on the Meetings page, rather than here on the News page, which will make it much easier to add reports from the archives.
Look out for the Leonids tonight – clearish skies at 20:30 tonight, and the peak expected to last until 23:00
Club History
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
Sunday 15th November 2009
Yesterday I spent an hour with Gordon wading through the Club’s archives – three files full of newsletters, press clippings, photos and other paraphernalia that Gordon has collected over the last 15 years!
Over the next few months I’m hoping to put as much of this information on the web site as I can, and to get the ball rolling I’ve made a page describing the Club’s History.
November Meeting Reminder
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Tuesday 3rd November 2009
Don’t forget that our November meeting is tomorrow night, Wednesday 4th November, when Dave Eagle from Bedford Astronomical Society will give a presentation on Charles Piazzi Smyth‘s observatory.
As usual the meeting will be held at 7.30pm in the Vinter Room, Vinter Close, Papworth Everard. Check out the Meetings page for a map.
Dark Skies
Sunday, October 25th, 2009
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!