Event Reports

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Event Reports

8th December, Admiral Smyth Talk at Bedford Gallery - Linton Guise & Dave Eagle

On a damp and cold December Tuesday, around 35 members of the public turned up to hear Linton and Dave's talk on the Smyth's and their place in Bedford's Astronomical Heritage. Linton started by introducing other famous astronomers of Bedfordshire, Thomas Gwyn Empy Elger, Thomas Maclear and John Lee, before moving on to Admiral Smyth and his career as an amateur astronomer. His books "A Cycle of Celestial Objects" (and others) can still be found, although you may have to hunt a little! Dave then took over and covered Charles Piazzi Smyth (Henry's 2nd son) and his achievements. These include becoming assistant to Maclear at The Cape of Good Hope in 1835 and Astronomer Royal for Scotland, as well as his famous trips to Tenerife to observer there.

Both Linton and Dave had put an enormous amount of effort into their research, and this clearly showed with the details they covered. Linton and Yvette even managed to track down Admiral Smyth's last known residence! An excellent talk enjoyed by all present!

Below are more photo's from the exhibition...

5th December, Bedford Gallery Exhibition - Linton Guise & Dave Eagle

I thought Saturday was a great example of the Society functioning at its best. None of us knew quite what to expect but I feel the vast majority of those that attended and asked questions enjoyed the day.

Well done to all. Attached a typical photo of the interest level from the youngsters.

Linton

An excellent day guys!

It went extremely quickly though.

I couldn't believe it when we started packing away as it was almost 4:00.

The exhibition looked good too.

Dave

5th December, Bedford Gallery Exhibition - Darren Jehan

A sunny day greeted us as we set up our display for the exhibition. When I arrived, Dave Eagle and Peter Ashwell were hard at work setting up the displays and equipment, Linton having brought a telescope earlier. We were soon joined by Bob who assisted Peter in completing the set up of the display boards.

The room itself was set out to accomodate the rocket-making for kids in one half, and the BAS and astronomy exhibition in the other. The walls had text about the Bedfordshire astronomers and some fantastic Hubble Pictures depicting objects such as M31, M33, M13 and The Cats Eye Nebula. The room is also equipment with a digital project, screen and a lecturn. The screen and projector are recessed into the ceiling when not in use and when the screen retracted, a large image of Admiral Smyth at his telescope could be seen

We were kept busy with a steady flow of visitors, and during the day, Linton and I gave a series of short talks on what could be seen at night. This generated lots of interest and many of the children were interested in finding out more about the planets, star sizes and how some of the objects were formed. The layout of the room worked quite well, with the children making rockets and the parents coming over to see the astronomy exhibition. Linton is very likely to have another couple of group bookings following this, and we might pick up a new member or two!

Peter and Bob had a steady stream of customers for the free posters that were available, and did a sterling job in answering question on BAS and astronomy in general. Dave, I noticed, had several groups interested in how to connect cameras to telescopes and how the images were taken. Perhaps this is something we could run as a public workshop in the new year?

Children have a great knack for asking some stretching questions, and the children we saw were no exception. Questions on the colour of stars, how stars are formed, why do they explode, how to take pictures, kept us busy during the course of the day. We also demonstrated some of the software (Starry Night and Stellarium), and of course, they were invited to come and attend one of our public observing nights.

Some pictures of the day below, and many thanks to Linton, Dave Eagle, Peter Ashwell, Bob Wickens for giving up their time, and to Phil Stone and Graham Watkins for attending and supporting. If I missed anyone else, my apologies!

International Year of Astronomy Events - Darren Jehan

Friday 27th saw the last of our public open evenings to celebrate IYA and I am pleased to report that for the first hour at least, we had some clear skies. I estimate 15 members of the public attended, and some of the school boys as well, all were ably support by Linton, Yvette and Phil. Thanks also to Peter H, Graham and Kevin for adding their support as well

We managed to get some nice view of Jupiter, the moon, Pleiades, Albireo, Vega, Ring Nebula, Uranus, Double Cluster and they were treated to a planetarium show as well!!

I would like to extend my thanks to everyone from BAS who have helped to make these events a success, especially to Phil, Linton and Yvette. And of course, a huge thank you to the members of the public that turned out to see the delights of the night sky and all it can show. I know that people still turned up on the cloudy nights, which I think is an excellent indication of how interested people really are in the wonders of the heavens!

Darren Jehan, Chairman BAS

A Tale of Two Saturdays - Graham Watkins

Or making an exhibition of myself in Cambridge and London. A Review by Graham Watkins

Saturday 17th October and it’s off to Cambridge for Hoyle Day at St John’s College. Having packed the wife and children off to the shops (a mistake I paid for, literally, later on) I headed to St John’s for an exhibition and lecture to honour the astronomer and scientist Fred Hoyle (1915-2001) who was made a Fellow of the college in 1939. Hoyle was without doubt one of the 20th century’s most distinguished scientific figures but in my mind he was associated most with the championing of the steady state theory of cosmology in the face of those who supported the big bang; he was the man who got it wrong. By the end of the day I had a much more balanced view and a better understanding of Hoyle’s considerable achievements thanks to the lecture given by Dr Simon Mitton, author of a biography entitled A Life in Science if you’re in the UK or Conflict in the Cosmos for the American market. They like their astronomy action packed over there.

Dr Mitton’s talk was both well researched and entertaining as he led us through Hoyle’s life and work and his role as a populariser of astronomy and science on radio in the 1950s, paving the way for the likes of Sir Patrick Moore on television. Probably his greatest contribution to science was the ground-breaking work he did on the synthesis of elements in the hot interior of stars, detailed in a paper published with William Fowler and Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge. While Fowler received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 Hoyle was ignored, a fact that hinted at his controversial status within the scientific community with his continued support for steady state cosmology after the evidence for the big bang became overwhelming. Hoyle was known as someone who spoke his mind and was dismissive of critics, he had a well documented public falling out with Martin Ryle (later Astronomer Royal), and the opposition he met was probably as much to do with personality and politics as hard science.

I soon came to realise there was much more to Fred Hoyle than steady state theory; he had ideas on astrobiology and how primeval molecules from which life evolved on Earth could have been transported from elsewhere in the universe, he was a key figure in establishing the Anglo-Australian telescope, he gave lectures all over the world and wrote many books on astronomy and science, one on the astronomical significance of Stonehenge, along with several science fiction novels. His status is confirmed by the many honours and prizes he received in his lifetime including a knighthood.

Suitably enlightened I made my way to the Old Library where items and documents from Hoyle’s life were on view. The selection was varied and interesting and included personal possessions, letters, notebooks and press cuttings. There was the 1949 radio script in which Hoyle himself coined the term “big bang” to describe his opponents’ theory of the origin of the universe, although probably not as an insult as has often been reported. Since then the term has come into use all over the world in a variety of contexts far removed from astronomy. The French call it le big-bang. Very original, I was hoping for something with a little more Gallic flair. Of particular interest to an amateur observer such as myself was a handsome brass 23/4 inch refractor given to the young Hoyle by his parents as a birthday present and the letter he wrote soon afterwards telling of his delight in seeing Saturn through it for the first time.

After looking at the Hoyle exhibition I went downstairs to see the Way to the Stars, a small but interesting exhibition of astronomy relating to St John’s College. Books and papers were displayed next to astronomical instruments and information about prominent Johnian astronomers past and present. A wonderful medieval copy of a treatise on the astrolabe by Geoffrey Chaucer (of Canterbury Tales fame) particularly caught my eye.

So there we have it, a very pleasant day. After forking out for the family’s retail activities it was back on the bus to Madingley Road Park and Ride, nodding reverentially to the Institute of Astronomy as we passed, which, incidentally, was formed from the merger of Hoyle’s Institute for Theoretical Astronomy with the university observatories in 1972.

Saturday 24th October. Went to London to meet up with some old friends for beer and curry (rather more of the former, actually... sorry). As we weren’t meeting until later in the day it gave me the chance to visit another couple of exhibitions, Explorers of the Universe at the Royal Albert Hall and Cosmos and Culture at the Science Museum.

The photographer Max Alexander’s exhibition of portraits was displayed in the long, circular gallery running around the outside of the auditorium at the Royal Albert Hall and included professional astronomers working at the cutting edge of research as well as amateurs as diverse as Patrick Moore and Nik Szymanek. Each photograph was accompanied by an explanatory text that outlined the individual’s area of activity and, in most cases, a picture of an astronomical object. However this was not just a collection of smiling faces, what made the exhibition a delight to view was that the composition and setting of each portrait had been carefully thought out to reflect the subject’s work or add a touch of humour or even comment on the nature of the universe itself. Hence Mr Szymanek, who drives an underground train in his day job, was pictured in front of one bearing the destination sign Andromeda, and the face of theoretical cosmologist Carlos Frenk was lit to suggest the proportions of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy thought to make up the universe. One eminent professor was even pictured alongside Oscar Wilde’s famous line “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” actually lying in a gutter! Well it made me laugh.

Along with the portraits was a superb collection of Max Alexander’s other photographs of places connected with astronomy, such as Edinburgh Observatory and Isaac Newton’s house, and some stereoscopic (3D) images done by Brian May. As you probably know Mr May is not only guitarist with the rock group Queen he is also an astronomer, having studied it at degree level before music took him along other paths, and yes, there was a portrait of him in the main exhibition. As an added bonus Max Alexander himself was there that day and took the time to chat to visitors about his work, answering questions on the photographs and telling the stories behind them. Apparently the whole project took about a year and the ideas were 80% his with around 20% contributions from the astronomers.

A short walk down Exhibition Road took me to the Science Museum to see Cosmos and Culture, a temporary exhibition, on until the end of December, relating to astronomy throughout human history. There was a very wide range of objects on display which included astronomical instruments and documents from Europe as well as the Far and Middle East, the original 1610 Moon map drawn by Thomas Harriot, the only surviving mirror from Lord Rosse’s Great Telescope of 1845 and, bringing things right up to date, spare parts for dark matter and gravitational wave detectors. All in all it was a fascinating collection that also took in more frivolous items such as souvenirs commemorating the solar eclipse of 1999, one of Stephen Hawking’s old speech synthesisers and US bumper stickers lamenting Pluto’s loss of status as a planet. Culture of sorts, I suppose. The exhibition benefited from touch screen displays explaining what the items in it were and drawing them together into various themes. During the afternoon Caroline Herschel, sister of the astronomer William Herschel, gave a presentation on her life and work (I assumed this was an actress employed by the museum rather than some nutter who had wandered in off the street in an 18th century dress and wig). She was the first female professional astronomer, as witnessed in the exhibition by the hand-written note from George III granting her a salary of £50 a year to assist her brother.

Like it or loathe it, and if you’re reading this I assume you’re in the former camp, astronomy has had a profound influence on human society in many subtle and some not so subtle ways. It has been celebrated throughout 2009, the International Year of Astronomy, in many forms, from the things I have tried to describe here to the special observing sessions held by BAS. I have no doubt that the cosmos will continue to fascinate as long as there are stars and people to look at them.

BAA 'back to basics' workshop - Linton Guise

The BAA held a 'Back to Basics' series of talks in Bedford on Sunday 11th Oct hosted by our Society and Bedford School. Over 50 attended the day, topics ranged from Observing Jupiter & Saturn to Robotic Observing. A practical session on sketching the lunar crater Clavius was very much enjoyed by all.

Many thanks to all the BAS members that worked hard during the day to make the event a success.

Linton Guise