Marek Kukula is the Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. His speciality research subjects were the study of super-massive black holes and the evolution of galaxies. The first point that Marek made was that the ancient astronomers did not have the problem that we have today of light pollution. The blaze of stars over […]
The Flamsteed were in the unusual position of having a Friday evening lecture, rather than our usual Monday evening slot. This was so that we could welcome back Nick Kanas, who made a stop off in London to visit us, on his way home from Paris to San Francisco. Nick is professor of psychiatry at […]
At the beginning of the meeting some important announcements were made. David Waugh mentioned the formation of a Radio Astronomy Group, details of which would follow in the near future. As Mike Dryland is leaving the committee, Mike Meynell has been appointed as vice-chair in addition to his existing responsibility for the website, social media […]
It was a pleasure to welcome back an old friend, Dr Robert Massey, now Press Officer at the Royal Astronomical Society. He was previously Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory and has appeared many times on radio and TV to explain various aspects of modern astronomy and space exploration. Robert was instrumental in helping to […]
The main event of the Flamsteed Christmas evening was a lecture by Dr Darren Baskill who is well known to us as an Astronomy Learning Officer at Greenwich where he gives many planetarium shows and runs various short courses. His main role away from Greenwich is Outreach Officer at the Department of Physics and Astronomy […]
Carl Murray is a member of staff at Queen Mary, University of London, and is part of an international team of astronomers and scientists working on the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. His speciality is the study of Saturn’s ‘F’ ring. The lecture started with the projection of an interesting slide showing the ‘G’ and ‘E’ […]
This was the first John Griffiths Memorial Lecture, presented in honour of Dr John Griffiths who sadly passed away in 2010. John was a passionate astronomy teacher and a good friend and mentor to many Flamsteed Members. The lecturer on this important occasion was Professor Allan Willis who was a colleague and friend of John’s […]
This lecture was presented by Dr Roger Hanson who lives in New Zealand. Roger gained a 1st class honours degree in chemistry from Manchester University, and a PhD from Trinity Cambridge. He subsequently became a chemical engineer for Big Oil, designing industrial chemical plants. Roger asserts that there is a strong connection between chemical engineering […]
The 20 biggest cosmic mysteries made simple by Dr Stuart Clark This lecture was presented by Dr Stuart Clark, Senior Editor for space science for the European Space Agency, and a contributor to the New Scientist, The Guardian, and The Times. Stuart has written several excellent books and this lecture was based upon his recent […]
Jim Al-Khalili is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Surrey and also holds the Chair in the Public Engagement in Science. He is well known as the presenter of several excellent TV science programmes. Jim began by explaining that he was born in Baghdad and his father had the foresight to leave Iraq and […]
