Meetings and Events
2007 - 2008
The meetings (listed below) are held in the main hall at Blundell's Prep School (formerly St. Aubyn's School) at 7:30pm, usually on the first school-term Friday of the month. No previous knowledge of astronomy is necessary, so if you're at all interested you're very welcome to come along. Many of us are regular attenders at our informal meetings, but a warm welcome is always given to new faces. For directions, see the map.
| Date | Subject / Speaker |
|---|---|
| 2007 | |
| Friday 10th August | Starbecue - 8:00 to 8:30pm. Bring food, drink, deckchair and, if you have one, a telescope for a supper under the stars. |
| Friday 7th September | Lunar Helium 3: Mining on the Moon
(Dean Millar) A fascinating insight into a potential new energy source for the 21st Century. |
| Friday 5th October | Sputnik: Around the World in 90 Minutes
(Andy Lound) To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, Andy will tell the story of the world's first artificial satellite in this dramatic presentation. |
| Friday 9th November | Faulkes Telescope presentation
(local students) Enjoy a short presentation of some amazing images taken by students of Blundell's School and Tiverton High School using the Faulkes Telescopes. |
| Hunting for the Higg's Boson
(Vincent Smith) Then learn why physicists and engineers have built the world’s highest energy particle collider at CERN near Geneva. Vince works on this project and will speculate on some of the things that may be discovered. |
|
| Friday 7th December | Advances in Long-Wavelength Astronomy
(Derek Ward-Thompson) Modern astronomy uses much more than just optical telescopes. Derek will show how infrared and other long wavelengths have opened up many of the mysteries of the Universe. |
| 2008 | |
| Friday 11th January | Observing the Lunar 100
(Lilian Hobbs) Discover how to observe Charles Wood's 100 lunar objects using just a small telescope. |
| Friday 1st February | Live Fast and Die Young
(Tim Harries) A look at the life of the most massive stars that produce 90% of the light in the Universe and die in spectacular supernovae explosions. |
| Friday 7th March | The Sun in 3D (Lucie Green) NASA, Japan and ESA have collaborated to produce the STEREO and Hinode missions. Using 3D videos Lucie will explain how she and her team will track eruptions from the sun's surface through space to Earth. |
| Friday 2nd May | Thomas Harriot - The First Telescope
Astronomer (Allan Chapman) Thomas Harriot was an English astronomer and a contemporary of Shakespeare. He heard of the "Dutch Spy Glass" in 1608 and was the first person to observe sun spots and other astronomical phenomena - before Galileo. |
| Friday 6th June | Angular Momentum - The Most Powerful
Force in the Universe? (Ian Kimber) + AGM After a brief AGM our member Ian will explain the important role that angular momentum plays in keeping the Universe the way it is. |
