May
27
Monthly Meeting

May Monthly Meeting

Exoplanets and biosignatures - including the latest on the K2-18b kerfuffle

Dr Matthew Bothwell

Matt as most of you know is the head of outreach for the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge and always delivers exceedingly good talks to his society. Last years was on Dark Matter but this year's is on "Exoplanets and biosignatures - including the latest on the K2-18b kerfuffle"

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Apr
29
Monthly Meeting

April Monthly Meeting

New Horizons – Spacecraft to Pluto

David Davies

I’m sure you will remember David’s excellent talk on Apollo 13 from last year. He has a new talk looking at the New Horizon’s mission to Pluto from the story of it’s development, launch and arrival at Pluto. Until relatively recently New Horizons was the fastest man-made object (36,350 mph), now easily superseded by the Parker Solar probe as it continues to wind-up around the Sun (430,000 mph).

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Mar
25

March Monthly Meeting

Full Moon

Mike Foulkes

The Moon is a fascinating object to observe both with small and large telescopes.

However the time around the full Moon can be frustrating for many observers as its brightness can make observing many objects in the sky more difficult.

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Feb
28

Members Star Party

Members Star Party

It’s been some time since we had a star party at Standalone Farm and made wider use of the observatory.

Before we do any ‘public’ events we thought it would be a good idea to have a members star party / observing evening first. This will give us chance to give the observatory a good shakedown and see how we might plan for a public event in future.

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Feb
25

February Monthly Meeting

Current state of Lunar Exploration

Dr Ezzy Pearson

There has been a resurgence in lunar exploration over the last decade. What inspired this sudden interest? Who is trying to get there? And how are things going?

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Dec
3

AGM (Members Only)

AGM

Please don’t forget that the AGM starts at 7pm and will be via Zoom. 

Following the AGM, Dave Eagle will take us on  A Whistle-Stop Tour of the Universe:  Hitch-Hiking on a Ray of Light.

Join Dave on a mind-blowing journey from Earth out to the very edge of our observable universe, visiting objects of interest along the way. What better excuse is there to show some beautiful images of our amazing universe and show just how small we are on the grand scale of things.

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Sept
6

ML Astro SHG Demo

Gordon Ewen has offered to give a demonstration of his new MLAstro spectroheliograph (SHG) this Saturday at 08:45.

For those of you who were present at last week's monthly meeting this is a demonstration of what the SHG can do.

For those of you that weren’t at the meeting the SHG allows the Sun to be viewed at numerous wavelengths associated with the many elements present there, which can give a significantly different picture of the Sun.

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Jun
7

Telescopes in Town

As part of the Letchworth Festival, we are bringing our powerful telescopes to Leys Square again. Come and see the stars and planets in breath-taking photos and videos – and even a live feed from a telescope abroad (just in case it’s a bit cloudy in the UK on that day).

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