June 11, 2016

Shrewsbury Park Summer Festival – 11 June 2016

Report by: Mike Meynell

Andy on the Flamsteed stall

Once again, the Flamsteed were delighted to be invited to participate in the Shrewsbury Park Summer Festival this year, set on top of Shooters Hill with fabulous views over London, Kent and Essex. In fine weather this is a perfect spot for astronomy, and our plan was to provide several solar telescopes for people to view the Sun. Sadly, the fine weather was not forthcoming, and we found ourselves huddled under marquees whilst trying to keep the rain off of our ourselves and the telescopes!

We had set up a meteor detection system which stayed active throughout the rain, and we picked up many meteors. People could see the tell-tale signals of the meteor burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere displayed on a laptop screen… fortunately the laptop was placed well under the marquee for protection from the elements.

Andy had produced a couple of folders containing astrophotography images taken by some of our members. That certainly kept many people entertained, and we had lots of comments on the quality of the images taken… and a certain amount of amazement that such images could be taken in the light-polluted skies of London.

Though the weather was obviously against us throughout, it’s a real testament to all of our volunteers that they stayed positive and still had great fun despite everything that the weather gods could throw at us.

Obviously the weather kept many attendees away, but we still managed to chat to some of the people who were around, and many seemed very interested in the Flamsteed and what we had to offer.

Thank you to Andy, Clive, Grey, Malcolm, Mike, Nick, Roger, Rupert and Tej… for your sense of humour, your commitment to the society and for your time and help. It is massively appreciated… we couldn’t have done more.