Big Skies at Big Wood

A big "Thank You" to Peter for organising an improptue observing session Wednesday night.

We made good use of a rare clear night under some wonderful dark skies at Big Wood, to put the new Society Telescope through its paces. I am glad (and a little relieved!) to say it performed impeccably, placing a string of chosen targets in the eyepiece.

The montage shows some of them. Can you identify them? There will be a full report on the observing session at next weeks meeting.

Robin

September CAS Meeting

Remember our next meeting is on Tuesday 30th September, 7.30pm at St Joseph's Church Hall. This month I'm very pleased to say that we have our old friend and CAS founder Stuart Atkinson coming up from Kendal to give a talk on his favourite topic . . . Mars.

Staurt's talk "Visions of Mars" will examine how our view of Mars has changed over the years, from Percival Lowell's sketches to the very latest images from the MERs and Phoenix. Many of the images will be processed by Stuart himself. I'm certain it will be a fascinating talk, see you there.

Chris.

Big Bang day is Nigh!

No not that one. You've missed that by about thirteen and a half thousand million years! But 10th September marks the start of an experiment which might just bring us a step closer to understanding what went on in the first fraction of a second in the life of our Universe. I am talking about the start up of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).




BBC radio 4 plan to cover it with a series of programmes and their website is as good a place to start as any if you want to find out what all the fuss is about.

Alternatively, let the physicists tell you themselves in the Large Hadron Rap (I know what you are thinking but it is actually not half bad!)


Oh and by the way if you have heard that they might produce a black hole which will gobble up the Earth, don't worry they won't, I guarantee it!


Robin