by Mike Meynell The autumn equinox is on September 23 – the point where the hours of night and day are equal, so we’re looking forward to the skies getting darker again. I’m going to cover the Moon and the planets and then move on to some of the other objects that you can view […]
At our last Flamsteed committee meeting in May, Nick Phillips proposed that we set up a series of “members only” solar viewing events at the Royal Observatory Greenwich to take advantage of the equipment that we have available and to promote interest in solar observing amongst the Flamsteed membership. We’ve been running public sessions at […]
Report by Andy Sawers As the dawn chorus gave way to the sound of the school run, it still wasn’t at all obvious that we were going to have a good solar viewing day. The clouds weren’t great and the forecast wasn’t much better. Still, perhaps we’d get a couple of hours of showing and […]
Report by Mike Meynell In truth, the Flamsteed don’t need much of an excuse to organise a trip to Herstmonceux, the second home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. However, it was a bit of a surprise to find that it had been 6 years since our last visit, back in June 2008. It was the […]
Report by Rupert Smith In celebration of International SUNday we held a solar observing session at our regular Blackheath location on……Saturday! This was due to the better forecast offered on this day, which, despite some cloud from time to time, proved to be the right choice. There was a good turnout of scopes, which as […]
Report by Mike Meynell There can’t be many astronomy societies that can boast of having arranged two trips to CERN in Geneva within a year! However, following on from the huge success of our first trip in September 2013, we decided to run a second trip in order to meet the obvious demand from Flamsteed […]
One of the great pleasures of being a member of the Flamsteed Astronomy Society is the opportunity to chat to other members of the society about an incredibly wide range of topics. The knowledge of our membership never ceases to amaze me and has again been demonstrated by the quality of debate on our new […]
Professor Ian Crawford is Professor of Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck College, University of London. Apollo 17 was the last space mission to the moon in December 1972. One of the astronauts on this trip, Harrison Schmitt, was the first (and so far, only) scientist on the Moon; having gained his PhD is Geology […]
About 30 members came along to our last History Group lecture evening of the 2013/4 season. We were treated to two talks, each by a very knowledgeable member – scholars and gentlemen both! Mesopotamian Astronomy – Tim Newling Tim Newling kicked off and spoke about ‘Mesopotamian Astronomy’. Tim is a long-standing Flamsteed member and spends […]
Professor Louise Harra is professor of solar physics at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory and came to the Flamsteed to talk about the current solar cycle and why it might (or might not!) be unusual in comparison to previous solar cycles. Louise started with an explanation of solar cycles. Solar cycles have been known about […]
