Next Meeting: Wednesday 29-Mar-2017

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 29-Mar-2017.

Our guest speaker will be Professor Mike Bode, of Liverpool John Moores University, who will talk about The Liverpool Telescope: A Giant Robotic Eye on the Universe. 

The meeting will be at 7:30 P.M. at the usual venue:  the Burley Memorial Hall, Waverton, CH3 7QN

Next Meeting: Wednesday 22-Feb-2017

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 22-Feb-2017.

Our guest speaker will be Professor Albert Zijlstra, of The University of Manchester, who will talk about The History of the Earth. 

The meeting will be at 7:30 P.M. at the usual venue:  the Burley Memorial Hall, Waverton, CH3 7QN

Professor Zijlstra warns that this may be a long talk so it would be advisable to arrive a little earlier than usual to facilitate a punctual start.

BAA Weekend Meeting at King’s School: September 2017

The date of the British Astronomical Association Weekend Meeting has changed.

The conference will be held over the weekend of Friday-Sunday, September 8-10, 2017.

The venue is unchanged:  The King's School, Vanbrugh Theatre, Wrexham Road Chester CH4 7QL.

N.B. The BAA website has not been updated yet.  The date it gives (15-17 September) is incorrect.

[The date changed to avoid a clash with a Chester Racecourse meeting which has been moved to the weekend of the original BAA meeting.]

BAA Request

We have been asked by the British Astronomical Association to pass on a request to any of our members who are also BAA members:

 

Dr Nick Hewitt

“Gara”, Billing Park

Wellingborough Road, Northampton NN3 9BQ

Home: 01604 404007 Mobile: 07753 671091

nickdhewitt@btinternet.com

15/01/2017

Dear Society President or Secretary,

I am writing to you in order to enlist your assistance in my task to try to forge greater relationships between the British Astronomical Association and grass roots amateur astronomy in Britain. We at the BAA feel that we have a great deal to offer amateur astronomers in expertise and experience but feel this resource is not being fully tapped. We are aware of some dissatisfaction of some members, and of some negative views of non-members. We hope to redress this.

I am attempting to find BAA members within the many astronomical societies in Britain, to gain their views and enlist some help (this would not be onerous!). I am hoping that you may ask your society members who are BAA members to contact me (nickdhewitt@btinternet.com ) just to make themselves known. I can then correspond with them directly. If you do not have any BAA members within your society, I would be pleased to know this too, so would be grateful for a note from yourself to this effect.

I do hope you may be able to assist me in this, and look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely

Nick

Dr Nick Hewitt

Trustee, British Astronomical Association

North West Astronomy Festival: 1,2-Jul-17

The 2017 North West Astronomy Festival will be held on Saturday and Sunday 1-2 July at the Heath in Runcorn Cheshire.

More details can be found on the North West Astronomy Festival website.

BAA Workshop: 11-Mar-17 “Back to Basics”

The British Astronomical Association is holding a “Back to Basics” workshop on Saturday, 11-March-17 hosted by Mexborough and Swinton Astronomical Society in South Yorkshire.

The workshop, aimed at beginners, will feature a talk by BAA president Jeremy Shears entitled: “What equipment & books do I need?”

The BAA website gives full details as does the S&MAS website.

Public Lecture: 15-Feb-17 University of Leeds

As part of the “ERC=Science²” project, funded by the European Research Council, the University of Leeds is holding a free public lecture on Wednesday 15th February at 16:30. The talk, by Professor John Plane of the School of Chemistry, is titled: “Cosmic Dust – From Stars to Climate”.  For more details, the location or to register follow this link.  The lecture and speaker are described thus:

This lecture will explore the origins of cosmic dust in the solar system, its impacts on the Earth’s atmosphere and its role as an indicator of rapid climate change.

John Plane is a Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Leeds. He is recognised as a world-leading expert in the chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere, from the upper ocean to the edge of space. His research involves field observations, laboratory and theoretical studies, and the development of atmospheric models, in order to understand the interactions between the different atmospheric regions. Professor Plane has recently been awarded the Vilhelm Bjerknes Medal for 2017, by the European Geosciences Union (EGU), for distinguished research in atmospheric science.