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Astronomy group - previous meetings
- June - By Jove! "The Sun is 99.98% of the Solar system. Jupiter is 71% of everything else." Learning about the biggest planet in the Solar system (and the one with the best music!).
- March - The Voyager spacecraft mission - now one light-day away from Earth - had it all. The rings of Jupiter (yes, Jupiter). Chuck Berry. The pale blue dot. Our first man-made interstellar object. Naked people. Active volcanoes.
- February - recorded lecture by Scottish Astronomer Royal Catherine Heyman on dark matter and dark energy.
- January 2026 - the weather was against our proposed observing evening so Bob gave a very amusing talk about William Herschel (discoverer of Uranus) and Bob's search for the location of Herschel's forty-footer telescope.
- December - Jupiter probes and a recorded SPA lecture on exoplanets.
- November - all about the Moon; supermoons, normal moons, tides and phases.
- July - Cinema Night. Newton Stewart Cinema arranged for a screening of the greatest sci-fi movie ever, 2001: A Space Odyssey in association with the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society.
- June - measuring cosmic distances and an interview with Catherine Heymans, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland
- March - practical observing evening. The Moon, Venus and Jupiter.
- February - movie night! Contact (1997) produced and directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jodie Foster.
- January 2025 - Stargazing with Galileo. Four hundred and fifteen years after Galileo discovered the Moons of Jupiter, we'll combine his own observations with modern technology to see what he saw through his telescope in January 1610.
- November - For our November meeting, we joined with the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society to get a group discount for the tenth anniversary screening of the terrific sci fi movie, Interstellar. Directed by Christopher Nolan, it stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine. Theoretical physicist (and Nobel Laureate) Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant on the film - so you know the 'black hole' science is good!
- October - James Clerk Maxwell - following a film about the wide range of Maxwell's scientific practical and theoretical work, guest David S. was on hand to answer questions. Maxwell was a local lad - the family home of Glenlair is near Dalbeattie - but he is little known outside the scientific community. His contribution to science was wide ranging, from colour vision and photography, to the formation of Saturn's rings, and his work on electricity and magnetism.
- September - In September we had a very special talk as professional astronomer Dr Jenifer Millard was talking to us via Zoom about the amazing photographs from the James Webb Space Telescope and what they tell us about the science of our universe. For more information, here is the link to a short YouTube video about the telescope.
- August - Who Wants to Be a Milky Wayer? At our August meeting, the group won the top £1 million prize* playing the game show, Who Wants to be a Milky Wayer. Apart from making everyone incredibly rich, it was also a fun way to test and boost our knowledge about everything from Thunderbirds to black holes! (* No, not really!). What's it like to fall into a black hole (NASA video)?; Fred's report of the European Lunar Symposium public meeting in Dumfries which includedplans of the ESA-Argonaut project to build the biggest radio-telescope at the far side of the moon.
- July - we met for the first time at our new venue, the Print Room, where we learned about asteroids, comets and meteors. We also talked about how to observe the Perseids meteor shower that peaks in August. And we discovered whether Edmond Halley ever actually saw Halley’s comet!
- June - Black holes - we had a great talk about some of the most difficult to imagine but fascinating celestial objects: black holes. Are they black? Are they even holes? Where do they come from? What happens if you fall inside one? And is 'spaghettification' the greatest word in science?
- May - another spectacular astronomical event this month with the solar storm producing an aurora display. Our main event was a recent Gresham College lecture by Chris Lintott of Sky at Night fame who will explore whether there could be - or ever have been - life on other planets in our Solar System. Chris is, of course, a terrific and entertaining speaker and his talk is not to be missed.
- April - this was two days after the spectacular total solar eclipse that tracked across North America. We talked about the science, the history and the amazing experience of these wondrous events.
- March - practical observing at a member's home. We took in the delights of the moons of Jupiter, our own Moon, the Pleiades (‘Seven sisters’), the Orion nebula, and much more. We even had a lucky fly-by of the International Space Station!
- February - movie night! 2010: The Year We Make Contact. It’s an excellent sequel by Arthur C. Clarke to his momentous 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s not as weird and contains some remarkable scientific thinking about planets and life on other worlds. But has HAL-9000 survived?
- January 2024 - BBC Sky at Night magazine recently published a list of the 50 greatest astronomers of all time. It was fun learning about what we know today because of the work of astronomers from the past – an astronomical A-to-Z, from Annie Maunder to Fritz Zwicky.
- December 2023 - joint meeting with the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society for a talk by facilitator Andy on the historic flight of Apollo 8 – the first time that humans travelled beyond the Earth’s gravitational pull and orbited our Moon. The mission truly was a giant leap for mankind, paving the way for Neil Armstrong’s small step seven months later. Andy has produced a list of resources on the Apollo missions and other interesting stuff.
- November - practical observing session (cancelled due to bad weather)
- October - some of the amazing shortlisted and winning images from the Royal Observatory Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards. This was a good intro to group member Bob's excellent talk about the history of observing the Moon. And the group had a big laugh while watching a 1969 Dutch simulation of the Apollo 11 Moon landing!
- September - a pre-recorded lecture about the amazing Antikythera mechanism, a 2,000-year-old astronomical computer which is fictionalised in the latest Indiana Jones movie.
- August - “20 Amazing Things About Astronomy” covered the whole range of the subject – science, observing, history and space exploration. Group members quickly added to the list with their own amazing things, too! We also talked about how to view the Perseids meteor shower.
- July - At the first face-to-face meeting, held in July, Andy gave a talk titled “Why there’s more to stargazing than just gazing at the stars!” It helped novices appreciate that stars come in different sizes and even colours, helped members find the Milky Way, and explained why some constellations (such as Ursa Major, or the plough) can be seen all year round while others (Orion, for instance), are seasonal. And did you know there’s a duck on the Moon? Members contributed great questions, comments and stories about their own stargazing experiences.