The inaugural meeting of the Flamsteed History of Astronomy Special Interest Group took place on Saturday 20 April 2013 in the South Building of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Around twenty Flamsteed members ignored the beautiful weather conditions outside to help shape the direction of this new group, which is being led by Mike Dryland. The […]
The second of two Flamsteed workshop in the space of a fortnight returned to our favourite topic of telescopes. David and Roger, assisted by Martin and myself, presented a 2-hour workshop on the different types of telescopes and mounts, giving some general advice to those who were either thinking of buying a telescope or needed […]
The Flamsteed were delighted to welcome Martin Siegert, who is Professor of Geosciences at the University of Bristol. Martin is a glaciologist, which may have left many attendees wondering why he was giving a lecture to an astronomy society! All became clear when Martin explained how he was the principal investigator of the Natural Environmental […]
Some of you may have been aware that we’ve had some film students from Ravensbourne University attending a few of our recent events. They’ve now completed their film and have kindly placed a copy online so that we can see the result. The first couple of minutes are about the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, […]
by Mike Meynell Here is a list of objects to view in the night sky in March 2013: Comet C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS M44 Beehive Cluster (Praesepe) Jupiter Saturn Mercury The presentation is shown in the video below. Watch it full screen to see the star maps clearly. Press the spacebar to pause and restart the […]
It has been evident over the last few years, particularly in relation to the huge success of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, that there is a great deal of interest in the subject of astrophotography. To try to satisfy some of this interest, the Flamsteed ran their first ever […]
The Flamsteed were delighted to welcome Dr Suzanne Aigrain, who is a lecturer in Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of All Souls College, specialising in the detection and characterisation of exoplanets. Suzanne first drew our attention to the famous picture of Earth rising over the Moon, taken by astronaut William Anders […]
The objects detailed below will be visible with binoculars or to the un-aided eye. First of all, there is a handy tip for judging distances in the sky. If you extend your arm and make a fist, holding your arm up to the sky, your fist will cover approximately 10° of the sky. The Sun […]
Pictures by: Mike Dryland, Grey Lipley and Mike Meynell Whilst in the middle of preparations for the BBC Stargazing Live event at the National Maritime Museum, we were approached by the BBC Sky at Night team about their forthcoming visit to Greenwich. We were asked to get involved in the making of the very first […]
Dr Francisco Diego is Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London. As a keen populariser of astronomy, he was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Flamsteed Astronomy Society and presented the first lecture back in 1999. Francisco’s lecture showed how unlikely it was for […]
