BAA Historical Section Meeting, Liverpool

The British Astronomical Association  Historical Section  will be holding a meeting on Saturday 21-May-2016 in Liverpool.  Full details of the programme and booking information are here.  Details of all BAA events and meetings can be found here.

New link: Astro Radio

Astro Radio is an online radio station broadcasting an eclectic mix of music 24 hours per day.  There are also  programmes devoted to astronomical news and events with a slant on what can be seen locally.  The link can be found under the OTHER LINKS section.

Joint Spring Conference: Society for the History of Astronomy and the William Herschel Society

The Society for the History of Astronomy and the William Herschel Society will hold a Joint Spring Conference on Saturday 2 April 2016 in Bath.  You can download a copy of the conference programme from here: Spring Conference 2016 Flier (PDF file, 315 Kb)

Gravitational Waves detected

100 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), in the U.S.A. believe they have detected gravitational waves.

Back in September 2012 Dr. Ed Daw of Sheffield University gave a talk on gravitational waves to Chester Astronomical Society.  He was a member of the LIGO scientific team and a world leader on gravitational wave data analysis.  At the time he was confident gravitational waves would be detected within ten years saying:

"Now that the Higgs Boson is 'out of the way', the direct detection of gravitational waves is the next frontier in cosmic physics.  If they're out there, we'll find them."

Major advances in physics do not come often - perhaps once in 30 years, Dr. Daw thinks - and here we have confirmation of a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity made in 1915.

You can read the announcements from the University of Sheffield here and LIGO here.

British Astronomical Association survey

The British Astronomical Association (BAA), now in its 126th year, is conducting a survey to improve the usefulness of its web site (www.britastro.org) to all amateur astronomers, not just members of the BAA.  Many of you will know the president of the BAA is Jeremy Shears, a member of Chester Astronomical Society and a keen observer of variable stars.  You can read what Jeremy says about the survey here: www.britastro.org/node/7140.

The survey takes just a few minutes to complete and, as an incentive, the BAA is offering a year’s free membership to the BAA to one lucky (but randomly chosen) participant.  The survey is anonymous but to be eligible for the prize you must leave an email address for them to contact you if you win.  The survey closes on Sunday, 28th February 2016 so hurry if you want a chance to win!  The winner will be selected on Tuesday, 1st March 2016.

You can take part in the survey here: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HG9SCBV