Monday 8 June 2009

Cheltenham Science Festival - Engineering Apollo

Yesterday, an early start (for a Sunday morning), to see Chris Riley's talk - Engineering Apollo.

This was an excellent talk about the engineering behind the Apollo missions, and struck a real chord with me - remembering the events of nearly 40 years ago. I may have to dig out my copy of "The Dish" again...

A very bright sky after sunset last night too - but no NLC's apparently visible.

Friday 5 June 2009

Cheltenham Science Festival - Star Party - Take 2

Last night saw our second star party evening at the Cheltenham Science Festival. Another really good turnout of people, and some difficult questions to answer !

Although early in the evening the weather looked promising, it actually turned out worse than the previous night. We were able to see the Moon through the cloud, but that was about it.

Much thanks to those that turned out this evening - Kevin Taylor (& Pauline) with 12" Dob, Peter Burgess with ETX, Tony Ireland with 5" Mak, Rob Davis (not sure what he had!), Steve Darnell - SGL member, with 16" Dob. And Rod Salisbury & Derek Maskell.

In the day I went to a couple of the lectures - one on Rutherford, which was very interesting, and on entitled Copernicus, but was really about the impact of arabic astronomy on western astronomy leading up the Copernicus. So not really not much about Copernicus himself. However, it was not a bad talk and Jim Al-Kalili (not sure thats spelt right) is always entertaining.

Thursday 4 June 2009

Cheltenham Science Festival - Star Party Last Night

Although the weather did not look promising, for those that toughed it out we were finally able to view the Moon & Saturn, and take in Albireo, and even M13.

A short talk to the assembled throng at 9:30 was followed by observing at 10:15 - the cloud thickened and thinned through the evening, but in the end it was quite a successful night.

Much thanks goes to Cotswold ASer's: Kevin Taylor (who brought his 12" Light Bridge), Peter Burgess (with his ETX), Paul Wheat (Binoculars and tripod), and Derek Maskell & Rod Salisbury.