LDAS at St Christopher School
on Monday January 16

Following its success in 2011, Stargazing Live returned to the BBC, with 3 programmes in mid-January 2012.

Once agaon, Professor Brian Cox was accompanied by Dara O'Brian - a trained physicist and "frustrated astronomer".

In conjunction with these programmes, the BBC asked astronomical societies to join in, running activities across the UK.

BBC2 showed 3 programmes on January 16, 17 & 18 at 8pm, featuring Professor Brian Cox and Dara O'Briain.

LDAS held a public astronomy evening at St Christopher School in Letchworth. The school has its own observatory and the Society provided 15 additional telescopes.

There were also two talks on astronomy presented by the Society Chairman.

The forecast was for a sunny day and a clear sky, which was exactly what happened, so we had a great view.

Here is what happened on January 16

• The Sun set 16:18. It was 5º below the horizon at 16:51, 10º below the horizon at 17:27
• Venus was at 17º altitude / 223º azimuth at 17:30. Set 19:43 Magnitude -3.9
• Uranus was at 36º altitude / 200º azimuth at 17:30. Set 22:26 Magnitude 5.9
• Jupiter was at 48º altitude / 163º azimuth at 17:30. Set 01:16 Magnitude -2.3
• Io emerged from Jupiter’s shadow 18:24 Magnitude 5.7
• Europa emerged from Jupiter’s shadow 19:28 Magnitude 6.0

With perfect weather, no wind and a clear sky, we were able to show off all of our planned targets, and visitors were also shown the Orion Nebula, star clusters and the Andromeda Galaxy.

All in all, as more than one person said, "it was a cracking event"!

Many thanks to St Christopher for hosting the evening, and to all the staff for their co-operation.

Click on the map image for a PDF file with further information.

St Christopher School is in Barrington Road. The postcode is SG6 3JZ.

Public entrance to the main car park is via Cloisters Road. The approach and car park are shown in purple.

An overflow car park is accessible via the western section of Barrington Road, directly off the A505. As you approach the school, turn right into the car park. The approach and the car park are shown in orange.

Telescopes were set up in the field, along the area marked in red.

The astronomy talks took place in the Social Library, shown in yellow.

The dotted blue line shows the route to the Social Library from the main car park.
The dotted white line shows the route to the Social Library for foot visitors arriving at the front of the school.
The dotted yellow line shows the route between the Social Library and telescopes on the field.

For any further information, write to events-at-ldas.org.uk (Replace "-at-" with "@")

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