Dates for 2022-2023 season
We have some great speakers lined up for this year. Please join us on the second Monday of each month (except for August). Please click on the + sign below for more information.
‘Satellite Navigation’
A talk by Steve Hurley.
How satellite navigation works, its history and how it may develop further over the next 10 years.
‘Atmospheric Optical Phenomena: Rainbows, Halos & Glories’
A talk by Dr. Clive Saunders, Centre for Atmospheric Studies, University of Manchester
‘Apollo: A Moon Odyssey’
Author and presenter Andrew Lound dramatically tells the story of the Apollo project tracing the highs and lows, the sweat and tears of the most ambitious and daring mission in history. This is a fascinating story of human achievement – illustrated with images, scale models and accompanied by sound and music.
‘Messages From Earth’
Sending Messages to be picked up by alien civilisations is called METI (Messaging to Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) and is an activity which has taken place with increasing frequency over the past few decades. Advocates of METI argue that in addition to searching for extra-terrestrial signals we can increase our chances of making contact with aliens by sending messages to stars which have planets on which intelligent life may have evolved. The alien life forms, if they receive our signal from Earth, should recognise it as a message from another civilisation and, in theory at least, be able to extract the information contained in the message.
This will build on the talk about SETI which Steve originally gave to WDAS in July 2020.
The lecture will cover:
- Artefacts which have been sent on spacecraft destined to leave the solar system (e.g. the Pioneer Plaques, Voyager Golden Record)
- Also the messages which have been sent from Earth in hope that an Alien civilization will at some point intercept them. The most famous of these was the Arecibo Message
Some further background information is available in Steve’s blog posts: here and here.
AGM + ‘The Pluto Story’
The society’s annual general meeting followed by a talk by Professor Ian Robson.
‘Predictions for Astronomy in the next 200 years’
A talk by Dr. Megan Argo BEM
Please note this talk will now be presented via ‘zoom’ videoconference and large screen projection at the school.
‘Members Christmas Evening’
Join us for some festive cheer – with Christmas nibbles and soft drinks together with displays from our astrophotographers plus a ‘magic mirror’, pop-up planetarium and telescope/equipment display!
- A 15 minute planetarium show, kindly set up and provided by our member, Annette Hunsley. The show will be based on ‘We are Aliens’ by the National Space Centre. There is room for eight chairs and two or three people sat on the floor in the planetarium. We will hand out tickets on arrival for the five shows that Annette hopes to be able to fit into the evening.
- Astrophotography displays by a three or four of our members. These will be set up around the room, with the photographers bringing along some of their equipment and a laptop to show their photographs and discuss how they get their results.
- A display of methods used and results achieved to take photographs of the path of the sun over a six month period using Solarcan pin hole cameras.
- Discussions around a ‘beginners pack’ of information to help in finding your way around the night sky and understanding the phases of the moon and how and when this can be observed.
- The ‘magic’ mirror, which produces truly amazing hovering 3D images of the night sky.
‘Wonders of our Solar System’
A talk by Paul Money.
Take a tour of the major and minor bodies of our solar system and our nearest star, the Sun.
