March 1, 2010

Solar Stormwatch

Dr Chris Lintott

Report by: Mike Dryland

Flamsteed members were delighted by an unscheduled visit from Dr Chris Lintott of BBC’s Sky at Night. Chris was able to come along to the March 1st meeting to present an introduction to the Solar Stormwatch project which has been developed working with the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

Following in the footsteps of Galaxy Zoo, Solar Stormwatch aims to use the power of the internet to engage thousands of amateur astronomers, of all skill levels, to help review and analyse images of the Sun collected by the Stereo satellite system. After a short on-line tutorial participants will be able to examine the images to try and identify developing solar storms and track their progress.

Solar Stormwatch

For more information click on the logo, above, to see the Solar Stormwatch site.

Chris was able to stay through the evening and listen to Stuart Clark’s talk. At the end of the meeting Chris was in great demand to sign autographs and answer questions on all kinds of astronomical and show biz subjects. In his spare time Chris is a Research Fellow at Somerville College Oxford.