The official site of ADAS: an astronomical society based in the Altrincham area, bringing the cosmos to you since 1964. Latest News WELCOME Next Event We are a friendly society of around 30 people who meet regularly to talk about and enjoy the night sky. We have several telescopes and other pieces of equipment which can be borrowed by society members for their own use. Throughout the year we meet on the first Friday of each month (except July and August) at 8pm until 10pm at Timperley Village Club. At these monthly meetings we discuss the society's business and have an event such as a lecture, video, slide show etc. Next Event NEXT MEETING Horseshoes on Saturn 5 Dec 2025 University of Manchester Dr. Colin Steel 622nd Meeting Subscribe to Calendar For more information on future events like this, look at our 'Upcoming Events ' page. To attend, become a member or pay a £3 fee at the door Download Previous Slide Show Click here to see more previous events with any slide shows of them linked, and click here for a list of presentations. Watch Video of Previous Meeting Click here to see more previous events with any videos of them linked, and click here for a list of videos. See Minutes of Previous Meeting OTHER EVENTS Name Description Date Location Organisers Link Got an event you want to share? Email the webmaster at webmaster.adas@gmail.com to get it published. Latest News LATEST NEWS Webb has Arrived A Time Machine Thirty Two Years in the Making Calling from the Moon Click here for the latest news article Click here for the latest post about an event The This is the line up of the three people that keep this fantastic society ship shape, bringing the cosmos to you, even if the clouds cover it. LEARN MORE COMMITTEE

Check the calendar and who the next speaker is going to be. If there is a space available and you have a presentation you want to share, contact us! UPCOM ING EVENTS Date Subject Presenter 05/12/2025 Horseshoes on Saturn Dr. Colin Steel Next Presenter NEXT EVENT Horseshoes on Saturn 5 Dec 2025 University of Manchester Dr. Colin Steel 622nd Meeting Subscribe to Calendar Timperley Village Club, 268, Stockport Road, Timperley, Greater Manchester, WA15 7UT 15 parking spaces available behind the Timperley Village Club Local tram stop 22min walk (1.1 miles) 6 bus stops from 177ft to 0.1 miles First Friday of every month, except in July and August. Arrive at 8pm £3 for non-members to attend a meeting £1 for children to become members for a year - Click for more information £20 for adults to become members for a year - Click for more information

Look back at what we've been getting up to for the last few years, and pick up a few interesting bits of information about space along the way! PREVIOUS EVENTS C lick here to look at all the presentations Click here to look at all the videos of previous meetings Click here to see a contents of all our minutes Click here to see our Youtube page (where all of our videos are stored) Click here for information on our 50th Anniversary in 2014 Click here for information on past open days Got a past presentation to share? Contact Us! Read our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy so you understand what will be done with your work once submitted. 7 Nov 2025 Federico Panici Dark Energy: The Last Frontier MinutesHere N/A N/A 3 Oct 2025 Chris Suddick ADAS member An Introduction to Astronomy - part 2 MinutesHere N/A N/A 5 Sept 2025 Richard Bullock ADAS Member Current Night Sky N/A N/A N/A 4 Jul 2025 Dr Federico Panichi Order & Chaos in the Solar System MinutesHere N/A N/A 2 May 2025 Dr. Steve Barrett University of Liverpool The End of Everything MinutesHere VideoHere SlideShowHere 4 Apr 2025 David Temperley West Didsbury Astronomical Society Jupiter the Bully, Saturn the Saviour MinutesHere N/A N/A 7 Mar 2025 Mark Holmes High Legh Community Observatory Black into White: where a second can last an eternity MinutesHere N/A N/A 7 Feb 2025 Dr Colin Steele University of Manchester/Sheffield Astronomical Society Jupiter and the Trojan Wars MinutesHere N/A N/A 3 Jan 2025 George Abraham ADAS Member Modelling Massive Star Evolution MinutesHere VideoHere N/A 6 Dec 2024 Mazin Younis In Search of Dark Skies MinutesHere N/A N/A 1 Nov 2024 Dr. Steve Barrett University of Liverpool The Beginning of Everything MinutesHere N/A N/A 4 Oct 2024 Chris Suddick & Richard Bullock ADAS Members An Introduction to Astronomy (part 1) & What's in the Sky Minutes Here N/A N/A Date Speaker Position Subject Minutes Video Presentation 1 2 3 ... 17 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ... 17

Where all our PDF and Word formatted minutes are stored for you to view OTHER MINUTES Date Meeting Minutes 7 Nov 2025 622 Minutes 3 Oct 2025 621 Minutes 4 Jul 2025 619 Minutes 6 Jun 2025 618 Minutes 2 May 2025 617 Minutes 4 Apr 2025 616 Minutes 7 Mar 2025 615 Minutes 7 Feb 2025 614 Minutes 3 Jan 2025 613 Minutes 6 Dec 2024 612 Minutes 1 Nov 2024 611 Minutes 4 Oct 2024 610 Minutes 1 2 1 ... 1 2 ... 2

What has been happening in the 2006 meetings can be found here. January February April May September October December MINUTES | 2006 6th January 2006 January The 412th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Club on Friday 6th of January 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley, Tony Aremia, Mike Tyrrell, Philip Masding, Norman Thurstan, Richard Bullock, Terry Bailey, Geoff Flood, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton, Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Nick Odom, Ged Birbeck, Stuart Oldbury, Adam Oldbury, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick, 2 others. (Total 21) The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the meeting and commented on what a good turn out it was for a January meeting. He told us that there was no speaker tonight but that we would be seeing some lunar pictures by Paul Brierly and a DVD about David Malin. We were told that next month Mike Cook would be bringing in some of his equipment to tell us about and explain some equipment pitfalls. We then started with the DVD about David Malin the acclaimed astronomer and astrophotographer on colour in the universe. It told the story of his astrophotography, mostly with the Anglo Australian Telescope, but also from telescopes in the Canaries and Hawaii, using glass plate photography in three different colours to create spectacular pictures of great scientific value. How over the years his experiments with processing, printing and later with newer processes such as unsharp masking, had enabled him to make many new discoveries and obtain new information off photographic plates taken many years ago. The Chairman then thanked Geoff for providing the original video and Chris for transferring it onto the DVD that we watched. We then had our tea break. We restarted the meeting with some of Paul Brierly’s new Lunar pictures, the results of his first experiments with his new Philips tou cam pro & laptop and some of the problems he had experienced. Mark Crossley then recommended various software packages you could use to stitch them together into a mosaic. Next to business. The minutes of the last meeting were taken as read. The Secretary went through the post and reminded everyone that the area-planning meeting for the Stockport sky beam was on Monday evening 9th January. He and Geoff Walton would be going and anyone else who could go would be welcome, the Chairman apologised for not being able to go because of work commitments. The treasurer reported that society funds were currently just over £2000 but that bills just received would take it back under that figure. We were then brought up to date on the situation with the obs site and a possible move. The council had inspected the site and were waiting for an answer from the leisure department. Feedback from the Scout hut committee was mostly favourable but one or two were not sure at a rent of £400- £450. We said we would keep our eyes on the weather for a possible group-observing trip maybe to Clough House. The meeting was then brought to a close. 3rd February 2006 February The 413th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Club on Friday 3rd of February 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley, Tony Aremia, Mike Cook, Norman Thurstan, Richard Bullock, Terry Bailey, Geoff Flood, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton, Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick, Peter Baugh, Don Utton, Colin Bowler, John Tipping, Andy Carroll, Barry Carroll, 4 Others (Total 26) The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the 413th meeting and announced that tonight’s talk was one man and his telescopes by mike cook, telling the story of his experience with the telescopes he has owned over the last six years. His interest was kicked off by his uncle Malcolm and he bought himself a pair of 50mm binoculars, but soon wanted more. So he went to buy some larger 80mm binoculars and came away with a 5 inch Macksutov-Cassegrain. Mike then went on to describe his buying, selling and sold ownership of at least 24 telescopes of various designs and sizes over the past six years. These included a 5” Darkstar reflector, 10” & 14” home made Dobsonions, Nexstar 114, Celestron 80mm refractor, Konus 80mm refractor, ETX 70 tube assembly, Intes MN56 5” Maksutov Newtonian, Orion 6” tube assembly, Helios 8” reflector and 77mm Borg refractor. Next he sold everything he still had and got a 12” Meade LX200 with a Takahashi FS102 as a finder. Soon after he took it down to Devon for a star party and returned home with a TMB 105 triplet refractor instead. After the tea break he continued with some of the other scopes he has owned since including a Celestron C5, a 7” Mirage Maksutov with a Takahashi FS60 as a finder, 63mm Karl Zeis refractor, Takahashi FS70. Currently he has an 8.3” Takahashi CN212 Cassegrain/Newtonian, a Takahashi Sky 90 refractor and a Celestron C14 Schmidt Cassegrain. He also owned, for a short while, a 6-foot observatory dome, which didn’t make it into his own garden before being sold. Mike was thanked for his talk and we move don to the society business. First was the news that the Stockport sky beam planning application had been refused by the full planning council on environmental grounds. There was no news as yet from the council and the possible surrender of the obs lease. The meeting was then brought to a close. 7th April 2006 April The 415th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Club on Friday 7th of April 2006 at 8pm Those present were:Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley,Richard Bullock, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton,Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck +2, Chris Suddick, Peter Baugh, Don Utton,Philip Masding Roger Livermore B Hetly ? 1 other,(Total 18) The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the 415th meeting and announced that tonight we were fortunate to have David Ratledge from Bolton AS to give a talk on advances in digital astrophotography. David started by explaining how CCD chips work. He told us some of the advantages of silicon over film were that silicon is ten to twenty times more sensitive, no reciprocity failure and substantial subtraction of light pollution. David then talked about web cams. They are cheap but you need a laptop or computer to run one. They are good for imaging the Moon, planets, sunspots and can be used for double stars. Next was the digital darkroom he said that he used Iris software which is one of the ones that is free on the internet and that using parts of it he could get two to three times more resolution in the final image which was good for galaxies and planetary nebulae. We then heard about infrared imaging. Infrared imaging done through black glass cuts out all light pollution and penetrates the Milky way’s dust clouds, allowing you to see through the Milky way to otherwise hidden galaxies. It also lets you image quasars and the early universe. His next topic was digital SLR cameras. One advantage is that they have big CCD chips, in fact the same chip is used in some £500 DSLR cameras as in some £4000 dedicated astro CCD cameras. However they do have some problems of their own, they are poor at the red end of the spectrum as they have a filter over the CCD chip to give better flesh tones, but you can get one over the internet where the filter has been replaced with a clear one. Other problems include generally coming with poor quality lenses, exposure noise, dewing up and difficulty aiming through the viewfinder. Lastly he spoke about hybrid images where a close up image was pasted onto a wide field image for a more detailed composite image. We were shown lots of great images throughout the talk and were told if we wanted to see more to visit his website at www.deep-sky.co.uk . Paul thanked him for his talk and we then had a break. On resuming the meeting Paul Clark showed us four images of Saturn through his 6” scope with a webcam, to show his improvement over the last month. He then talked briefly about the viewing possibilities for the fragmented comet 73P/Shcwassmann-Wachmann over the next couple of months. Following this we went onto society business. The Secretary noted that we had received the new BAA journal and thanked Paul Brierly for donating a book on the moon for the society’s library. He also thanked all those who went to help and support at the recent astronomy evening at Delamere Forest Park. Ged Birbeck reported that as yet we had no prices for the clearing of the obs site. It was stated that there was a card for Tony Aremia, who was in hospital, for anyone who wished to sign it and had not yet done so, sending him our best wishes. For our next Meeting, on May 5th at 8.00pm, we would be changing venue and trying out the Scout hut. The meeting was then brought to a close. 5th May 2006 May The 416th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 5th May 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley, Tony Aremia, Philip Masding, Don Utton, Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton, Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck, John Tipping, John Gartshore, Roger Livermore, Stuart Oldbury, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick, Peter Baugh, Richard Bullock. (Total 20) The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and apologising for being late. He then thanked everyone who had helped sort out for tonight’s new venue, announcing that tonight we would start with a talk by Phil Masding called spy satellites. Phil started by saying, “Lets see what we can find in the public domain”. First Is the International space station, “ been there, seen that, got the T-shirt”. What else can you see? All the rest are very small in comparison, the next largest is the European satellite Envisat, however some of the others he has been trying to observe are the US Lacrosse satellites. The orbits for these 5 satellites are not published by the US and the orbits are only known because of amateur observations. He told us that given just a few observations from around the world that it was quite easy to calculate a satellites orbit. We were then given the known details on the satellites & their side looking radar systems. Phil then detailed his own successful attempts to image some of them, and using software he wrote himself, to use those images to work out some of the satellites true dimensions. Using his new diffraction grating he has now taken the spectrum of a different satellite, which may be an amateur first. The secretary thanked Phil for his talk and the meeting had a tea break. When the meeting resumed Mark Crossley gave us an update as to what has been happening with comet 73P and showed us some images of it taken by himself prior to it’s latest break up. After thanking Mark the secretary started on club business :- The society’s application to the Timperley village fair was being sent. The society now has a copy of David Ratledge’s new book for it’s library, and the society has received £50 from the Forestry Commission for our March talk at Delamere. Ged has received a quote for clearance of the obs site of £3000 and we are still waiting for a quote from the council themselves. It was suggested that we may hold a working party in June or July to do some of the work, fair warning was given “if it’s yours – take it out or it will be cleared”. It has also been confirmed that we do not need an asbestos survey. Next were opinions on the new venue, the general consensus was good. Chris Suddick told us the Adas website was up for renewal and he would do this for 2 years. Paul Brierly suggested we might wish to join him on the 19th/20th May at Clough House, possibly our last chance to observe galaxies until after the summer. Tony Aremia thanked everybody for his card and their kind thoughts.The meeting was then brought to a close. 1st September 2006 September The 418th Meeting and 41st AGM of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 1st September 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Richard Bullock Mark Crossley, Tony Aremia, Philip Masding, Don Utton, Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton, John Tipping, Roger Livermore, Paul Brierly, Colin Bowler, Geoff Flood, Chris Suddick, Peter Baugh, Sarabani Datta, Richard Sargent. The chairman welcomed everybody to the 41st AGM and announced that we would conduct the usual AGM business after the break, but first we had a talk from Richard Sargent from Chester AS. Richard told us that the talk was on The Astronomical observations of Henry Prescott, Deputy Registrar of the Diocese of Chester, who was born 9th June 1649 and died 9th June 1719 aged 70. A few years ago Richard attended a local history talk and found out that they knew of the era because of the diaries of a man called Henry Prescott. Interested he went to the library and found a 3 volume copy of the diaries. Henry was not an astronomer but did make quite a few astronomical entries in his diaries. The originals are loose pages and many are missing ,however from 1704 onwards they are just about complete. Henry Prescott was a lawyer by trade but he was also an antiquarian and a collector of antiquities including a large roman altar stone. He was appointed Deputy Registrar of the Diocese of Chester in 1686, his boss was Walter Pope who was also professor of astronomy at Oxford university, appointed by his brother in law John Wilkins scientist and co founder of the Royal Society. His first astronomical entry was the 26th January 1697. Indisposed after an evening with a friend where they consumed 17 pints of claret ,he spent most of the day abed. That evening after a stroll he was at Mr Robert Davies’s house and saw the moon through a telescope (the moon was only one day past full). Telescopes then were poor and it was probably a poor quality single lens refractor so they may not have seen much of interest.. His other astronomical entries included on 25th February 1706 an aurora and on 18th May 1710 he noted a bright meteor. In 1711 Henry also took on the post of registrar of the St Asaph diocese. His next entry was the total solar eclipse of 22nd April 1715 from the falcon coffee house which still stands as a public house. He next noted aurora on the 6th and 31st of March 1716, a halo around the moon on the 13th March 1717, aurora again on 30th March 1717 and 25th November 1718. On 19th March 1719 he reported a fire ball that he didn’t see himself as he was indoors at the time, but this was reported to him. The same phenomena was noted by Edmund Halley. Isaac Newton was put in charge of re-coinage and offered a job to Edmund Halley in the Chester mint so did Halley know of Henry Prescott?. In Henry’s diary on January 10th 1697 Henry reported spending the evening with Mr Davies and Mr Halley. Halley’s own letter of 26th October 1696 mentions a Mr Prescott and his alter stone as well as other items. The alter stone still exists and is on display at the Grosvenor museum in Chester. We then heard of Edmund Halley’s predictions and observations of the total lunar eclipse of 31st October 1696 and partial lunar eclipse of the 19th October 1697. We then broke for tea. In the business section of the meeting Paul Clark stated that next months talk would be on the South African trip he and Mike Cook had just taken. He also recommended the Sky and Telescope pocket sky Atlas. Over the summer the society surrendered its lease on the observatory site. Many thanks to Ged for sorting out the contractor and to Don, Chris and others for their trips to the tip with the excess rubbish. We now have the final paper work and the surrender of the lease is complete. The treasurer reported a £384 surplus over the year and at the year end in June the society had £1843, the surplus was due mainly to a tax refund on subs backdated several years and the sale of the binocular parallel mount. Since then the demolition and clearance of the old site at the cost of £1200, a cost of £200 for surrender of the lease, £430 for disconnection of the electric and the fact that we are owed £278 from powergen for overpayment of the electricity bill will leave the club with approximately £250. There was then a discussion on incomings and outgoings including subs , cost of scout hut, Delamere and the country fair. We were reminded that the Timperley fair is tomorrow and help was needed. The meeting then came to the election of committee members. Kevin Thurstan was re-elected as secretary, Richard Bullock was elected as the treasurer and Paul Clark was re-elected as chairman. The society thanked Mark Crossley for his work as treasurer over the past few years. We then discussed new ideas for future meetings. It was also noted that the secretary would take over responsibility for the society’s equipment list and that what was left of the 14 inch scope and its mount would be going to Moorley Green AS for storage. The next meeting will take place on Friday 6th October 2006 and we will still meet every Friday for a chat, tea and coffee at the scout hut. The meeting was then brought to a close. 6th October 2006 October The 419th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 6th October 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Richard Bullock Mark Crossley, Philip Masding, Paul Brierly, Geoffrey Walton, Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck, John Tipping, Roger Livermore, Peter Baugh, Colin Bowler, Geoff Flood, Mike Cook, Norman Thurstan, Nick Odam, Jordan Odam, Stephen McHugh, Ken Simons. (Total 21) The Chairman welcomed us all to the meeting and announced that this month Mike Cook and himself would be doing a presentation on what they did on their recent trip to Sutherland in South Africa. Mike began by telling us of his latest equipment changes and orders, he then began the first part of the evenings talk. Their first morning in South Africa saw a blood red sunrise as the sun rose through the distant cloud on the horizon. We were told that the man they were staying with Dave, got them into all the observatories on the SALT site and Mike went on to show us some pictures of and describe some of the ones they visited, including a tour of the SALT facility. He explained they were a 350 mile drive from Cape Town and that the observatories all do their own maintenance and re-aluminising in house. We were also given a description of the area and local town. Mike Informed us that they were given the keys to a large shed with a complete roll off roof containing a 16” LX 200 and a C14. He also told us to get the best view of the Milky Way was to lay down in the dirt road on the carpet they took from the boot of the hire car. We then stopped for a tea break. Paul restarted by describing how at the onset of darkness the Milky Way was right overhead, all the northern constellations were upside down and moved the wrong way across the sky because Sutherland was 32 degrees south of the equator. He explained that the Milky Way was so bright you could see your shadow by it but that even though the sky was not dark there was no light pollution. We were then shown various pictures of parts of and the whole of the Milky Way in colour and monochrome and given vivid descriptions. There was then time for some questions on what we had seen and heard of the trip. Next we covered the societies business The secretary said that the planned October trip to Delamere was not happening and that he was also waiting for news of a possible donation from the Altrincham Festival Committee. Paul mentioned that coming up were the Keilder Star party and Peak star party III. He told us that next month we would have a talk by Peter Schick and brought the meeting to a close. 1st December 2006 December The 421st Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 1st December 2006 at 8pm Those present were: Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley, Tony Aremia, Don Utton, Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton, Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck, Roger Livermore, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick, Colin Bowler, Stephen McHugh, Mike Cook, Nick Odom, Jordan Odam. 1 other (total 20) The Chairman opened by welcoming everyone to the 421st meeting and told us that this evening would start with a little show & tell. Geoff Walton gave us a demonstration of his new Vixen Skypod with a 110mm modified Maksutov optical tube. This computer controlled mount comes with a planetarium unit which contains various astronomical catalogues. He went on to describe the set up and alignment procedures which were not as intuitive as he had hoped but eventually he got it moving, taking questions during the demonstration. Next was Paul Brierly showing his Vixen GPDX mount on a heavy Meade field tripod with a special Alt and Dec interface from Chris Heapy to help polar alignment. It has sky sensor PC and uses it to mount various scopes including 70mm Teleview ranger used with a web cam as a guide scope, Zenith Star 66mm for CCD work. He explained he had had some problems which Mike and Mark had sorted out for him before PSP3, the mount will take his SPX200 but not his 300. Paul Clark then showed us some photographs from peak star party III and reported on the weekends events. We then had a break. After the break Paul Clark then spent some time on a sky diary of what we should be able to see over the next month with various pieces of equipment. It was put to the meeting that we would not be using the room over the next two Fridays (either side of Christmas) and was stated that the next meeting would be Friday the 5th January 2007 and any offers of a talk would be considered. The meeting was then brought to a close.

PAST VIDEOS Date Speaker Position Subject Video 2 May 2025 Dr Steve Barrett University of Liverpool The End of Everything 3 Jan 2025 George Abraham ADAS member Modelling Massive Star Evolution 1 Nov 2024 Dr. Steve Barrett University of Liverpool The Beginning of Everything 1 Dec 2023 Dr Steve Barrett University of Liverpool The Star of Bethlehem 3 Mar 2023 Dr. Steve Barrett University of Liverpool 'How to Build a Tellurian' 3 Mar 2023 Dr. Steve Barrett University of Liverpool 'Using a Telescope as a Beginner' 3 Feb 2023 George Abraham ADAS member Jupiter and its Galilean Moons 3 Sept 2021 Maurice Rushby ADAS member Antikythera Mechanism 6 Aug 2021 Chris Suddick ADAS member Astronomy for Beginners 4 Jun 2021 Rodger Livermore ADAS member A Very Amateur Approach to Astro-Imaging: 13.6 Billion Years Ago to the Present 2 May 2014 Dr. Phil Masding, Dr. Andrew Fearnside ADAS member, Manchester AS member The Polarisation of Moonlight and the Composition of Moonrocks 7 Mar 2014 Eddie Bruce, Ewan Hill-Norris ADAS members "Moon Landing: Fact or Fiction" 3 Jan 2014 Richard Bullock ADAS member "The Night Sky this Month" 1 Nov 2013 Chris Suddick ADAS member "How to Measure the Universe"

This is a list of all the astronomical equipment which the society has, all of which is available for borrowing by members for their own use at home or on dark sky trips except the 14" which is too large. EQUIPMENT This is a list of all the astronomical equipment which the society has, all of which is available for borrowing by members for their own use at home or on dark sky trips except the 14" telescope which is too large. Please click a symbol to request to borrow an item of equipment from the society (N.B. Become a member to borrow the equipment) 14" Newtonian telescope on German equatorial mount. It is available for use by all members each Friday night and at other times by special arrangement. LX90 SCT . This is a computer controlled, tripod mounted, portable telescope. It is quite heavy weighing in at about 45lb with its tripod. The picture shows it set up on its tripod with the computer control handset, 8x50 finder scope and the eyepiece diagonal for comfortable viewing. ETX90 SCT . This is a small version of the LX90. It is very light and portable which means it can be set up considerably faster than than the LX90. It is also known as 'The Critchley Meade'. 6" Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount . This is very light and portable and can be set up in seconds. No mucking about with batteries and aligning with guide stars. Plonk it on the ground or on a table and start observing. Pictured here with the society's web cam (see below). 20x100 binoculars . Also known as the 'MIA bins'. They have a mounting plate which can be placed directly onto a tripod or the parallelogram arm. There is also a heavy pedestal mount for these binoculars which is not shown in the picture. 20x60 binoculars . There is no mount for these binoculars nor any adaptor for clamping them to a tripod. If you borrow these then you will need your own clamp or have to hold them in your hands. SBIG STV . This is a digital video camera that can take pictures through the eyepiece of a telescope and record them for downloading onto a PC for subsequent processing. Web Cam . This is a small digital camera with an eyepiece adaptor for taking astrophotos. This needs a PC to operate and there is an extension lead with it for this purpose. Ideally you need a laptop computer to use this or you have to be quite close to your PC.

Look at fellow members' pictures of the Moon to get some ideas from peers, or even smile at the wonder of your own picture by contacting us! MOON Got a picture to share? Contact Us! Read our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy so you understand what will be done with your work once submitted.

Here is where the contents of our minutes is stored, so you can browse through what happened on each meeting. MINUTES CONTENTS Other Minutes (Word/PDF) 2021 Minutes 2020 Minutes 2019 Minutes 2018 Minutes 2017 Minutes 2016 Minutes 2015 Minutes 2014 Minutes 2013 Minutes 2012 Minutes 2011 Minutes 2010 Minutes 2009 Minutes 2008 Minutes 2007 Minutes 2006 Minutes 2005 Minutes 2004 Minutes

What has been happening in the 2011 meetings can be found here. February September MINUTES | 2011 4th February 2011 February PRESENT Chris Suddick (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Colin Eaves, Dave Butterworth, Steve Holt, Kevin Thurstan, Tony Aremia, Steve Saint, Josh Saint, Andy Greenhow, Stephen McHugh, Kevin Rodgers, Karin Rodgers, Geoff Walton, Peter Baugh, Nick Odom, Ged Burbeck + 1 other. Total 18 Chris introduced Alan Banks, formerly of Macclesfield AS whose talk was entitled: Observing the 3rd Planet Alan introduced himself as being not only an astronomer looking up he now monitors satellites, via a dipole aerial and receiver which he has cobbled together himself. Whilst initially tracking the satellites and getting images from archive material he now gets direct or indirect reception using free software (although one has to be licensed). Initially if man wanted to get a better view of what was happening around him he would climb trees or hills to look around. The next development was to get greater elevation by using balloons then by ‘planes and finally via an array of satellites. It was in 1957 that sputnik was put up and then in 1958 Explorer1 discovered the Van Allen belt, but at this stage the object was just to spy on the enemy. Now of course many countries have satellites either in polar orbit or geostationary orbit. Whilst many of these are still used for espionage purposes others are of considerable use to mankind and can study many occurrences on earth. Alan showed by video or stills some great images showing many applications of the images received, the most common being metrological images which can track and thus forecast the direction of storms or other weather patterns and giving early warning of potential problems. We were shown fluctuations in the ozone “hole” seasonal variations in ice at the poles. An outstanding example of water misuse was indicated by the drying up of the Aral Sea which can clearly be seen drying up over a relatively short period of time. Seasonal variations are another aspect which can be traced, for instance when trees lose leaves in winter there is less CO2 absorption but there is more pollution via heat generation. Particularly useful information may be generated in showing the direction of travel of disasters such as forest fires, the flow of floods or volcanic eruptions. These and many more were illustrated and clearly this is a fascinating subject. Although costs are tending to increase anyone wanting further information can look at Alan’s website, www.alanbanks.org.uk Chris thanked Alan for his talk. In the absence of Graham Sinagola and owing to the total incompetence of the stand ins there was no milk so we did not get a “teabreak”. There was no Treasurer’s report The Secretary drew attention to various meetings of other societies via the FAS website. The Liverpool AS Imaging Workshop on May 7th 2011 The Wythenshawe Stargazers meeting in Wythenshawe Park on Wednesday 9th March 2011.from 6.00 – 9.00pm. The Chairman then closed the meeting. 7th September 2011 September PRESENT Chris Suddick (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Geoff Walton, Colin Henshaw, Roger Livermore, Peter Baugh, Richard Bullock, Norman Thurstan, Steve Holt. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Ged Burbeck, Graham Sinagola. MINUTES OF THE 46TH AGM In the absence of Graham Sinagola minutes of the last AGM were not available. APPOINTMENT OF OFFICERS In each case there was only one volunteer for office and they were thus appointed with the agreement of those present. CHAIRMAN Chris Suddick TREASURER Richard Bullock GENERAL SECRETARY Geoff Flood MINUTES SECRETARY Peter Baugh (in liaison with Geoff Flood) SPEAKERS SECRETARY Peter Baugh TREASURER’S REPORT Richard presented his report (attached) which shows that last year we had 15 paid up members which is just about enough o keep the Society afloat, however, it was pointed out that 2 of those will be leaving the area. Items of loans and the repayment of them were a result of Richard Bullock kindly lending money to the Society as a result of problems with the banks. Rental for the period 2009 - 2011 has not yet been paid to 1st Timperley Scouts. This will amount to a sum of £400. All in all the Society has a balance of £1285 and Richard forecast that we should break even in the coming Society year. Richard will contact Mark Crossley to get a cheque signed so that funds can be transferred from the Yorkshire Bank to Barclays. SECRETARY’S REPORT Geoff reported that most correspondence comes in via e-mail and that these had been forwarded to members. All the current membership of ADAS can be contacted by e-mail with the exception of Tony Aremia who is kept up to date by the Secretary. Correspondence includes a monthly list of meetings supplied by the FAS and for September they include (locally) interesting meetings at the West Didsbury AS, Liverpool AS and Macclesfield AS. In the future it would be good if ADAS submitted notices. An e-mail has been received from Nick Odom who has emigrated to New Zealand. He was enthusing about the dark skies and the ability to see a great deal simply using binoculars - he can’t wait for his telescope to arrive. PROGRAMME With the withdrawal from office of Graham Sinagola it is necessary to arrange a programme of speakers from scratch. Graham has the NWGAS list and Peter Baugh will need to get that from him, he will also need contact addresses for the BAA and FAS. The Secretary will liaise with him in this respect. The Chairman noted that to keep costs low it is necessary for more members of the Society to give talks and we should aim that half of our meetings should be addressed by members. In October 2011 Peter Baugh will speak about Caroline Herschel so we are looking for another 4 internal speakers for this season. The possibility of doing a live link with Colin Henshaw is being examined or the possibility of Colin sending a talk on a memory stick for presentation ANY OTHER BUSINESS Colin Henshaw raised the possibility of increasing membership via articles in local magazines such as the Hale and Altrincham Handbook or View Timperley, ideally when there is an interesting astronomical event happening. Geoff Flood pointed out that we have a notice up in Timperley promoting ADAS and that Timperley Library has him as a contact for the Society but clearly there is more that could be done. The bigger problem seems to be retaining new members rather than attracting them. There being no other AGM business the Chairman closed this part of the meeting. Following a refreshment break Colin Henshaw gave a talk entitled Astronomy Without a Telescope Fist of all Colin showed photographs of the Lunation 1094 which showed the complete changes of the visible moon over a 1month period, a feat that would be virtually impossible in Britain as we never get a whole month that is cloudless. Colin was clearly up at some odd hours to catch these pictures as you get, in this case 7 crescents in the morning and 6 in the evening. But why do astronomy without a telescope? A number of reasons were given but mainly it’s low cost. having said that a good deal of money can be spent on cameras and ancillary equipment. The first thing is to learn to find your way around the sky via a star atlas and the BAA hand book which informs of dates and times of happenings. So armed then one can start to do some real astronomy, meteor counts and other data, planetary observation etc. Colin specialises in Variable Stars and measures variability using the brightness of known stars as an indication of variable brightness’s. Colin explained that Venus and Jupiter are too bright but Saturn and Mars are possible. Other observation possibilities include Milky Way (perhaps not in Manchester) , the visual appearance of which Colin feels has been neglected, Eclipses when one can measure changes in temperature and humidity at the earths surface, Zodiacal Light. Noctilucent clouds are often seen in this part of the country and are caused by water vapour on meteoric dust Using binoculars in many cases gives more scope and it is even possible to view deep sky objects. One can observe comets assessing the magnitude size and position of the tail and other aspects. Colin concluded that Astronomy without Telescopes is low cost, rewarding and can be appreciated by others. A vote of thanks was proposed by Chris Suddick, who then closed the meeting.

Look at what we have done to www.astroadas.org.uk to make us more accessible. ACCESSIBILITY This website has been designed with accessibility in mind. All the images have descriptions, the words have been categorised into their respective heading tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, P) and the colours have been checked for their contrast ratio being 4.5 or higher. However, if there is anything that has one of these listed above incorrect or missing (like the colours are of a contrast ratio lower than 4.5) then please contact the webmaster. Contact the Webmaster However, if my efforts are not enough for you, please follow this link to find out how to change text or colour settings. If you want to turn off the animations on this website, click this link for windows and this link for apple devices . However, if you have a different operating system to these, search for "Turn off animations on {insert respective operating system]".

What has been happening in the 2008 meetings can be found here. January February March April May June September October November December MINUTES | 2008 4th January 2008 January Minutes of the 431st meeting held in Timperley Scout Hall on Friday 4th January 2008 PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Paul Brierley, Tony Aremia, Chris Suddick, Colin Bowler, Geoff Walton, Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Paul Clark, Richard Bullock, Ged Birbeck, Liz Clark. ALTRINCHAM AND DISTRICT ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Total – 13 The Chairman welcomed everyone to the 431st meeting of the Society. One minutes silence was held, as a mark of respect, in memory of Don Utton who died suddenly in December. Don had been a member for round 17 years and was a former Chairman and Secretary of ADAS. Don was a real stalwart of the Society, the type of person who was always prepared to do anything that needed to be done or to help anyone who needed it. He will be greatly missed. It was agreed that £25 would be donated to Brain Tumour UK in memory of Don. Paul Clark gave a presentation of photographs taken over 2007 including amongst others: Comet McNaught, Saturn, Spiral galaxy (but which) Milky Way, Star Party, Mars, Comet Holmes, Casseopeia and Andromeda. Paul’s presentation was followed by a quiz, arranged by Kevin Thurstan. Those attending were split into 2 teams and although Kevin wondered if the quiz had been too easy it was noted that no team got all the correct answers! The Secretary had nothing to report. The only correspondence of note was from the British Astronomical Association enclosing their Journal, Year Book, and Programme, which have been deposited in our cupboard in the Scout Hall. 1st February 2008 February PRESENT Kevin Thurston (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Graham Sinagola, Nick Odom, Peter Baugh, Norman Thurstan, Chris Suddick, Paul Clark, Geoff Walton, Elizabeth Clark, Paul Brierley, Colin Eaves, Joe Holland, Colin Bowler, Mark Crossley, Richard Bullock, John Tipping, John Thompson. The Chairman welcomed everyone to the 432nd meeting of the Society. John Thompson from Macclesfield AS gave a talk on “The Life and Death of Stars” Ninety-five percent of the Earth’s energy comes from the Sun - but don’t worry this will continue one way and another for some 5 billion years. Spiral Galaxies, such as M51, are the region of star formation which takes place in the spiral arms where dust (carbon) Hydrogen and Hydrogen ions etc are irradiated with UV from hot young stars to form the embryonic stars. Very often these embryonic stars are surrounded by dense clouds of dust and thus cannot be seen. We see many clouds of dust, particularly in nebulae, often being blown about by solar winds along with gaseous globules which give ongoing possibilities. Star formation is a violent process and often leads to bi-polar jets blasting out from the proto star - more energy in space. Planets, orbiting around stars are often discovered via a Doppler effect and some 271 extra solar planets have been discovered to date (there will be more now!) We were told that Red, Blue and Green stars really are coloured (although the green ones really should be white) HR diagram gives the absolute brightness of stars with the hottest stars with most energy being brightest, giving out more light. Equally stars with bigger mass burn out more quickly i.e. higher mass quicker evolution. The energy in stars such as the Sun is produced by nuclear fusion reactions which create heavier elements. Starting with Hydrogen – the simplest element, Helium, is first produced. When the Hydrogen in the core runs out however, the core shrinks until its temperature and pressure increases enough to fuse Helium and create Carbon. At this point the star begins to bloat and becomes a Red Giant, with the reactions at the centre of the core quickly evolving to create heavier and heavier elements so that seen in section the core resembles an onion with different reactions at different depths. Once the core starts producing Iron the reactions quickly come to an end and in the last stages of evolution stars begin pulsating throw off their outer layers. The final state of the star is to become a white dwarf. Equally stars with bigger mass burn out more quickly i.e. higher mass, quicker evolution and a different ending. Very massive stars are “doomed to boom” and go supernova. More energy is required than can be produced by fusion to create elements more dense than Iron and they can only be created when a massive star explodes as a supernova and heavy elements are thrown out into space so that a death releases elements for a birth. The remnants of the boom may become a Neutron Star or in the case of the biggest stars a Black Hole where the remnant is so dense that nothing gets out, not even light. First discovered in 1783 by John Michel, Black Holes were named as such only in 1969. All galaxies are thought to have at least 1 Black Hole. So, there is a process; Gas Cloud – Red Super Giant – Super Nova – Black Hole/Neutron Star. And we……are just stardust. Kevin thanked John who had spoken so eloquently, with great slides and video, to the enlightenment of the audience. There was no formal business to be dealt with and Kevin closed the meeting with information that at the next meeting there will be a talk by Dave Ogden with an update on Messier Objects. 7th March 2008 March Attendance was not recorded Dave Ogden from Macclesfield AS gave a talk with an update on Messier Objects. 4th April 2008 April PRESENT Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Steve Holt, Colin Bowler, Paul Brierley, Colin Eaves, Nick Odom, Liz Clark, Geoff Walton, Chris Suddick, Stephen McHugh, Richard Bullock, Roger Livermore, Ged Birbeck, Peter Baugh. In the absence of a speaker Geoff Walton produced a BBC DVD of “The Planets”. The first part was with regard to the exploration of the major Solar planets with a second part conjecturing about what the human race might do and where it might go as Earth heats up. It proved to be a very entertaining evening. The Secretary announced that he had a copy of the April 2008 BAA Journal, which contains a photograph taken by Paul Brierley – “Emission nebula NGC 281 with embedded Star Cluster IC 1590”. There is also a copy of FAS Spring Newsletter which is now produced online. The May 2008 meeting will be addressed by Nick Odom. 2nd May 2008 May PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Nick Odom, Josh Odom, Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Peter Baugh, Steve Holt, Chris Suddick, Colin Eaves, Stephen McHugh, Colin Bowler, Geoff Walton, Paul Clark, ????? Ged Birbeck. Kevin opened the meeting and introduced Nick Odom who was to speak to us about the “History of Distance” Nick took us through astronomical measurement, starting with the ancient Greeks who realised that the earth is not actually flat and the sun is not the centre of the Universe and measuring far distances with a remarkable degree of accuracy via Geometry. On through the years via Copernicus, Kepler and Herschel and Hubble, until Einstein complicated matters with relativity thus distance was no longer in a straight line. Probably the simplest method of measuring distant stars is via the red shift although even this is less accurate than might be expected as the Universe is expanding non-uniformly. Following Nick’s talk we had a break and then continued with the business of the Society. The FAS Newsletter now comes as an e-letter but is too big to forward via Yahoo, a number of suggestions were made as to how we might proceed. Eventually the newsletter arrives as hard copy but minus some detail. The equipment list is to be put on Yahoo so that it can be readily updated; if members sign up to Yahoo they will readily be able to view the list. A set of 8X40 binoculars has been received from Evergreen Optics and are available to members. There are now 5 sets of keys and Kevin will arrange for all key holders to also have a key for the cupboard. Mar Crossley is changing ISP and at some point will have to close down the ADAS website. It was generally agreed that it would be worth having a training session some Friday evening so that more people become familiar with the website. Ged Birbeck agreed to ask his son Steve to set the website back up. Ged has asked Richard to send a cheque to pay for our stall at Timperley Country Fair and he asked members to start gathering items for the tombola. At the 6th June meeting there will be a talk by Mike Cook “Observatory Building and buying and selling Telescopes”. 6th June 2008 June PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Norman Thurstan, Geoff Flood, Steve Holt, Colin Bowler, Colin Eaves, Paul Brierley, Geoff Walton, Mark Crossley, Graham Sinagola, Tony Aremia, Chris Suddick, Roger Livermore, Nick Odom, Liz Clark, Richard Bullock, Peter Baugh, Paul Clark, Mike Cook. Total attendance – 19. The meeting was opened by Kevin who welcomed everyone and introduced Mike Cook. Mike gave a talk about the trials and tribulations of building ones own observatory. Being a glutton for punishment Mike chose to do this just after moving house, not far from his previous residence but to a house with infinitely better astronomical viewing and facing south. The new house is situated at the top of a hill and there are no other buildings to block his views, additionally there is no street lighting in his immediate vicinity and light pollution is minimal. The first task was to find an appropriate site in the garden which not only suited Mike but which was approved by his wife. Next he had to dig a huge pit 1 metre deep to take the pier for his scope. The pier was concreted in along with duplicated armoured wiring; obviously an awful lot of concrete was needed for this installation but it is vibration proof. A firm, flat base was prepared and the timber shell of the observatory erected with a sliding, sloping roof which slid on ptfe coated runners. The roof which is made from coated steel proved to be heavier than expected and supports had to be provided (which fold away when the roof is in place) Mains electricity was installed through conduits and all the necessary switching and ancillary gear put in. Now only the finishing touches-shelving etc. needs to be done. It is of course possible to purchase an observatory but Mike felt that the struggle was worth it as he now has an observatory completely to his own specifications. At the end of the day Mike is justifiably pleased and delighted with the results of his labour. Footnote: In the middle of all this Mike was having an extension put on his house (one wonders where his priorities lay?). Kevin thanked Mike for his talk and it was suggested that we have a society visit to see the end result. Following a break for coffee/tea we re-assembled but there was no business other than some correspondence from the FAS and BAS. At the AGM in September we will have a talk from Chris Suddick. 5th September 2008 September ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, FRIDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 2008 PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Steve Holt, Norman Thurstan, Graham Sinagola, Nick Odom, Jonathan Odom, Geoff Walton, Colin Eaves, Richard Bullock, Steve McHugh. Total attendance 12 ELECTION OF OFFICERS Proposed Seconded CHAIRMAN: Kevin Thurstan, Chris Suddick, Geoff Flood TREASURER: Richard Bullock, Kevin Thurstan, Geoff Flood SECRETARY: Geoff Flood, Kevin Thurstan, Geoff Walton Graham Sinagola agreed to attend to refreshments at meetings and Ged Birbeck will continue as the Society’s fund raiser. Geoff Walton proposed a vote of thanks to the Officers for their work over the past year, this was carried. Kevin added his personal thanks to the other Officers. TREASURER’S REPORT ALTRINCHAM AND DISTRICT ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY CHARITY NO. 1012350 The Accounts are held as hard copy as it was not possible to copy them over. Suffice to say that we have a surplus of £381.48 It was also decided that although attendances on Friday evenings between formal meetings are somewhat sparse we should continue to have the Scout hall open to enable members to assemble if they wish. Costs for hiring the hall run at around £400 pa which is less than previous costs when the observatory was operational. Following a discussion about Public Liability Insurance it was decided not to take it out as our contact with the public is such that it is unnecessary, bearing in mind that the Scouts will be covered for the hall as will places such as Delamere Forest. When out observing individual members are responsible unless we organise an official Society event, when it should be considered. OTHER MATTERS There was some discussion regarding the equipment owned by the Society. Many members do not know what is available or where it can be found (Society equipment distributed around a number of members). Kevin Thurston reported that a complete list of equipment is on the Yahoo site. There was a feeling that perhaps we should have an “Equipment Evening” where members holding the varies pieces of equipment could bring them in so that everyone could see what is available and possibly have a loan of it themselves. All members should make a point of being signed up to the Yahoo Newsgroup. It was reported that the new Website is up and running at www.ADAS.talktalk.net . A programme of speakers or events has been arranged up to February 2009 but obviously some more are needed and particularly from members of ADAS. The Chairman likes to alternate speakers between members and visitors. Members were reminded that Timperley Country Fair is on Saturday 13th September when help would be needed to man our stall and also on preceding Friday to fold raffle tickets etc. It was agreed that the library of books that we have would be sold off at the Fair. Following a refreshment break there was a talk from Chris Suddick: BOINC BOINC – Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computers is a system whereby many people can register to have their idle computer time used in a network to give massive computing capability. There are 3.5 million computers registered in 247 countries and participants can register for 1 or more projects. The system works by using idle time on your computer when the screen saver is operating. The most common project is SETI – Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence which has been using BOINC for some 5 years. There is so much information coming in that it would be impossible for any one computer to handle it. (In the view of the speaker this project is a waste of time!). Some other projects include: · cosmology @ home, which models the universe, searching for the model which best describes it. · einstein@home, which searches for gravity waves. · milkyway@home which examines the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy. · orbit@home which studies near earth objects Other possibilities are in the realm of Physics, for instance the Large Hadron Collider, environmental projects, medicinal, biological, and mathematical. Less vital ones include Belgian beer and pirates. The onus is with the project operators to promote their particular project and there are stats available to show how things are going. The Chairman thanked Chris for his interesting talk and then closed the meeting. 3rd October 2008 October PRESENT Geoff Flood, Roger Livermore, Tony Aremia, Roy Sturmey (Macc. AS), Shirley Sturmey (Macc.AS), Steve Holt, Paul Brierley, Geoff Walton, Colin Bowler, Peter Baugh, Chris Enddick?, Jonathon Odom, Nick Odom, Richard Bullock, Stephen McHugh, Paul Clarke, Ged Burbeck + an other. Total: 18. Thanks were expressed to Ged, Peter, Tony and Chris, who manned the stall at the Timperley Country Fair for the whole day. The stall raised £148 on the day from which £20 fee for the pitch should be deducted. Thanks were also expressed to Ged for getting the website up and running and to Chris for sorting out the e-mail. We now a link to the FAS and will shortly have one to NWGAS. It was agreed to lay some flowers on the grave of Don Utton. Geoff agreed to locate Don’s grave. Following the business side of the meeting a talk was given: Carry on Eclipsing by Andrew Greenwood from Macclesfield AS This visit to view the eclipse in Libya. The group travelled from Manchester to Crete to Knosos where they joined the good ship “Perla” which was to be their hotel and observatory for a while. The crew were very helpful in turning off lights at night to enable some observing. They were accompanied by some 800 star chasers including the boss of Chrysalis records and one Fred Talbot. On the day of the eclipse they rose at 01:30 and left the ship at 03:00. The eclipse was due some 5 hours later but they had to travel in 15 coaches with 800 people (via only 1 petrol station) on an 8 hour journey. The eclipse lasted for 4minutes and 10seconds of totality with the first contact at 09:09. During the period of the eclipse there was a temperature drop of 3 degrees and the desert looked like a really alien place. The group walked about quarter of a mile into the desert for viewing, which proved to be very sensible as most people did not go so far and it was chaos close to the road. From their vantage point they could watch the sky changing and the shadow coming across the land. 10 to 15 minutes before totality the camera could see the corona. Some spectacular photos were taken including a composite of 18 shots. Consideration is being given to seeing another eclipse, going with “Explorer Tours” in 2009. 7th November 2008 November Present Kevin Thurston (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Norman Thurston, Colin Bowler, Andrew Patterson, Tony Aremia, Mark Crossley, Paul Brierley, Colin Eaves, Geoff Walton, Graham Sinagola, Chris Suddick, Paul Clark, Nick Odom, Jonathan Odom, Peter Baugh, Richard Bullock, Mike Tyrell, Phil Masding, John Tipping, Ged Burbeck. Total 21 Apologies: Mike Cook. Kevin Introduced Paul Clark, who needed no introduction! Who was to speak to us about: Imaging in La Palma Paul made the 41/2 hour journey to La Palma via the recently opened direct flight from Manchester, operated by Thompson, and which flies each Monday. La Palma is a relatively undeveloped island which now is home to a significant number of international telescopes - The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) includes the Herschel 4.2m scope, at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory. The Observatory is open to wander about but is locked at nights. Really keen astronomers could allow themselves to be locked in and observe all night but they would be rather uncomfortable, so it is important to get out before the curfew. The Gran Telescopio Canarias or GranTeCan or GTC is situated at 2400m and cost an estimated €130 million to build. It is a co-operative venture between Spain, Mexico and the University of Florida following an initiative from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaria La Palma is a great place for observing because the Spanish Government has imposed severe restrictions on lighting . Additionally they have initiated an over-flying ban which prevents the complication of mistaking `planes for satellites. Paul stayed in Puntagorda and it was around 15 minutes drive up to the same level as the observatory. He discovered a fire road which although only 1 car wide had passing places which were suitable for setting up his equipment. On the basis that the road is only an emergency road there was virtually no chance of being disturbed or of car headlights ruining everything. There can be problems with the wind blowing sand from the Sahara which creates hazy skies but it is quite possible to get above 4000feet where the skies are clearer. Some observing was done from the patio of the villa where he was staying but most of his imaging was done using his 200mm telephoto lens on a digital SLR camera. Paul found that he could get a good focus using the screen on the camera, which has a noise reduction function and a cable release mechanism. With the tracking mount an accuracy of 5 arc seconds could be achieved but it was necessary to check the focus and alignment at intervals. This visit was well planned in advance and Paul had an idea of what he wanted to do and what expectations he had - naturally one has to have a degree of flexibility depending upon conditions and what is seen. Paul showed an number of exceptional images which were produced from 2 exposures stacked and using 2 second exposures from his F2.8 fixed lens camera. Following the talk, Kevin proposed a vote of thanks. After a break for refreshment the business of the society included an e-mail from the FAS suggesting the setting up of local groups of astronomical societies these would be along the lines of NWGAS which is already operational in our region. Richard Sargent the new President of the FAS contacted local groups to see if there would be support for holding the FAS Convention and AGM locally, say at Jodrell Bank 6 or 7 people indicated their willingness to support such a venture. Attention was drawn to the newly opened shop in Sale selling telescopes. They have a website - http://www.opticstar.com/ There being no other business the Chairman closed the meeting. 5th December 2008 December Present Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Norman Thurstan, Paul Brierley, Peter Baugh, Tony Aremia, Geoff Walton, Coin Eaves, Paul Clark, Chris Suddick, Nick Odom, Jonathan Odom, John Tipping, Ged Burbeck, Richard Bullock, Colin Bowler, Nick Dixon. Kevin open the meeting and introduced Dr. Alistair Gunn, from Jodrell Bank who gave a talk on “The History of Jodrell Bank” The existence of radio waves was confirmed by Heinrich Hertz (1857/94) and then in 1901 Marconi made a transmission across the Atlantic. As the atmosphere is transparent to radio waves reception can be made over the long distances required for astronomy. Jansky (1905/49) founded radio astronomy in 1932 by his detection of radio waves from Sagittarius and in 1933 he realised that a lot of noise was coming from thunder and lightening but that other noise was coming from the centre of the universe. This noise was at first ignored but Reber continued research at home with a home made radio telescope. Astronomers were slow to see the importance of the radio sky which is very different from the optical and radio is important to study physics. Sir Bernard Lovell, who is now 95 and still puts in appearances at Jodrell Bank, was educated at Bristol University. In 1936 he came to Manchester to study X ray crystallography. During the war he was put to work on cosmic rays but in 1939 he was transferred to the Air Ministry, essentially on radar research looking for reflections . Radar screens were placed along the East Coast and they picked up echoes which were not aeroplanes - Lovell thought that they could be cosmic rays and wrote a paper. During his time at the Air Ministry Lovell made a number of great contacts in the government and when the war was over he borrowed a radar system. This system was originally sited at the University Physics Department but interference from trams was too great and he discovered that the Botany Dept had land at Jodrell Bank and he moved the equipment there. They discovered sporadic echoes which proved to be meteors and in around 1947 they discovered daytime meteor showers which, of course, were invisible optically. More and more equipment was begged or borrowed to study cosmic rays. In 1950, £1000 enabled him to string some wires between poles which did not find cosmic rays but he had in fact built the first radio telescope and picked up radio waves from M31The first plans for a dish telescope were drawn up in 1950 but Lovell wanted a steerable scope. An instrument was designed by Charles Husband, construction began in 1952 and was completed in 1957. The instrument was half paid for by the university and half by the government, however it was decided that a solid surface was required, rather than a mesh one and this upped the cost. When the Mk 1 instrument became operational it was £260,000 in debt, partly because the bedrock on which the, very heavy, instrument had to be seated sloped down and at one side deeper drilling was required. The Sputnik launch in 1957 was the making of the instrument, the radio signals from the satellite were easy to pick up but only Jodrell Bank could detect the carrier rocket and it was spotted travelling at 1800 mph at 100miles above the Lake District. Jodrell Bank continued to be useful in the space race and because of public interest Lord Nuffield sent a cheque to pay off the debts Various modifications and refurbishment have been made over time and Jodrell Bank is now part of the Merlin project - a European network and arrays such as this will be the future of radio astronomy giving increased frequency sensitivity. 2007 was the 50th anniversary of the Lovell Telescope as it is now called and a show was put on using the dish as a screen (with the approval of the dark skies people). For the future it is proposed to build a new visitor centre, plans have been drawn up and construction will take place when funding is available. Kevin thanked Dr Gunn and following a break Society business was dealt with. SPA are offering telescopes to schools, several have been notified. NWGAS is still surviving with 7 or 8 societies. The newly formed South Cheshire AS, based on Nantwich will host the next meeting. Nick Dixon returned the LX 90 which has passed to Graham Sinagola The next meeting will be held on January 2nd 2009and will take the form of a quiz, prepared by Kevin. There being no other business the Chairman closed the meeting. As agreed previously some flowers will be purchased and placed on Don Utton's grave on December 3rd the anniversary of his death. Members were invited to go to cemetary at 11:30am.

This is the line up of the three people that keep this fantastic society ship shape, bringing the cosmos to you, even if the clouds cover it. COMMITTEE Treasurer Richard Bullock Richard is a graduate of Astrophysics from Cambridge University. He has been our treasurer since 2006. Chairman Peter Baugh Peter is a retired lecturer from Salford University and has been chairman of the society since 2013. Peter has organised many open days and external events promoting the society. Secretar y Chris Suddick Chris has been a member of the society for over 30 years and has served on the committee for most of them. He is the society's main focus for education in children's groups.

Here, learn how to observe the Sun safely during a clear day and the even more uncommon eclipse. OBSERVING THE SUN The following are guidelines only . There is no safe way to look at the Sun for a prolonged period of time. First, and most important of all - never, ever look at the Sun using any form of binoculars or telescope. Looking at the Sun through a small telescope (or binoculars) will be an extremely painful experience that will probably leave you blind!! This has happened to people - So Do Not Do It! Using a medium to large telescope would result in a situation similar to cooking a fresh egg in a microwave oven. The remains of your eye would have to be surgically removed... So how can you observe an eclipse in safety? Eclipses Before the Eclipse Starts Using a small telescope, point it at the Sun and project the Sun's image onto a piece of white card held behind the eyepiece. This is how all astronomers do it unless they possess extremely specialised (and very expensive) equipment. This is the safest method there is (please note if the telescope is not small enough even this procedure may not work - it may wreck the scope! But YOU should be OK. At least you can buy another scope! YOU cannot buy eyes wholesale!). You will clearly see the Moon slowly advancing across the Sun's disk and you may even see some sunspots. -NB-Do not forget that at this point children should be encouraged to make a lot of noise to frighten the dragon away. This technique has always worked for all previous eclipses! No dragon has yet eaten the Sun!! When the Sun is covered by more than 75% it is possible to use specialised glasses to look at the Sun. The Sun is considerably dimmer than normal and the glasses help to reduce harmful radiation. Always remember Even with the glasses, do not stare at the Sun for more than a few seconds at a time Only use glasses which carry identification showing they are suitable for looking directly at the Sun. These will be identified by having a CE safety mark and meeting the transmission requirements of 'scale 12-16 of EN 169/1992' or are 'Certified by BSI #0086 notified body HP2 4SQ'. Please note Brian Johnson of East Sussex County Council Trading Standards Service has drawn to our attention that the BSI postcode HP2 4SQ is not part of the BSI approval number! We thank Brian for this information. However it is perhaps sad that people think a postcode could be an approval number! Do not use several layers of exposed colour negative film to look at the Sun. These allow harmful ultraviolet rays to enter the eye. If you are further north in the U.K. than Torquay then you will not get a total eclipse. If you are in Torquay or somewhere else on the eclipse path then you can watch with your own eyes once the total eclipse has started. Once the eclipse has started you will no longer be able to see the surface of the Sun - that is why it is an eclipse! It is safe enough to look at the eclipsed sun and you will be able to see its outer atmosphere (called the corona). This eclipse (1999) has a duration of approximately two minutes. One safe way to see the eclipse is by pinhole projection. Take a sheet of card and punch a small hole in the middle and hold it up at arm's length. Look at the shadow on the ground and you should see a small image of the sun projected on the ground within the card shadow. During the Eclipse Sun If you want to look at the Sun when an eclipse is not happing, there are two different methods to do this (one is described below) Through a Pinhole Push a pin through the middle of a large piece of paper. Then, line it up with the sun (without looking at the sun through the hole or through any other methods (using the shadow cast by the paper could help). Place a piece of paper below your pinhole, where the Sun's image can be projected (line up the projection of the Sun with the paper). Then, try and make another hole in the paper and try to line the two projections produced onto the paper below. The Sun can also be viewed through eyepiece projection and through filters attached to a telescope/binoculars (please do research on this if you want to observe the Sun in this way) . For more information on this and more on how to observe the Sun, please follow this link (a NASA guide), this link (Space.com's guide) and this link (Sky & telescope's guide).

Look at the resources and pictures from our 50th Anniversary in 2014. 50TH ANNIVERSARY Radio Astronomy Features of the Cosmos

Look at fellow members' pictures of the planets to get some ideas from peers, or even smile at the wonder of your own picture by contacting us! PLANETS Got a picture to share? Contact Us! Read our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy so you understand what will be done with your work once submitted.

Want to get into astronomy but don't know where to start? Watch videos and read information to learn more and start your adventure! BEGINNERS If you’re interested in astronomy the best thing to do is to contact ADAS and arrange to come to one of our meetings. We’re a friendly group who will help you by suggesting resources, equipment and you are welcome to listen to some of our talks and presentations. Like us on Facebook where you can ask questions and join in the discussion or follow us on Twitter. One of the first things people want to do when they start looking at the stars is to buy a telescope. However, before you do that, there are many amazing things to see without any equipment, with the naked eye. Here is a short video to tell you what there is to see. One of the best ways to find you way round the night sky is to learn the constellations. Here is a short video showing those you may see from the perspective of Northern Europe. Remember that if you visit anywhere in the southern hemisphere (like Australia) the night sky will look different. Stellarium is a free piece of software that you can load onto laptops, tablets and even phones. Android and iOS versions are available. It has a great function where you can see all the constellations (find this and many more in the "other useful resources " section). Here’s a video showing you the constellations. Next, once you've learnt your way round the sky, it's time to start looking with a smaller field of view, on a telescope. Here’s a short video by the BBC Sky at Night Magazine explaining a little more about what is on offer (left), followed by the ADAS Guide to Choosing the Right Telescope (right). Along with owning a telescope, it is useful to know how the various types of telescope work and how to use them. Here is the ADAS Guide to Telescope Instrumentation and Operation, produced by ADAS members in 2014. As well as the telescope itself, eye pieces are also needed to view the night sky with a small and detailed field of view. Here is the ADAS Guide to Using Eyepieces There are some great video resources on YouTube and other sites. Here’s one that explains the basics of astronomy. Remember that any books will probably be available from the local library or contact us as we may have a copy available for you to borrow. Of course stars aren’t the only thing you might like to look at. You can get a good view of some of the solar systems planets. This first video (left) gives you some great images of the planets in the solar system. The second video (right) is a much longer and in-depth video about the solar system. Need some more reading material? Click on the left hand button to look at our guide to astronomy, describing everything from the planets in the Solar System to nebulae in the night sky. Or you could check out Chris Suddick's presentation explaining all the key ideas of beginners taken from a meeting on 6th August 2021 by clicking on the right hand button. Please do get in touch with us and arrange to visit one of our meetings and presentations or stargazing nights.

What has been happening in the 2009 meetings can be found here. January February March April May June September October December MINUTES | 2009 2nd January 2009 January Present Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Norman Thurstan, Geoff Flood, Steve Holt, Tony Aremia, Peter Baugh, Geoff Walton, Colin Bowler, Paul Brierley, Stephen McHugh, Colin Eaves, Richard Bullock. The Evening took the form of a Quiz, which was set by Kevin, who also acted as Quiz Master. Clearly a good deal of time and effort had gone into setting the Quiz and some great photographs had been down loaded for the event. Many thanks to Kevin for his efforts which led to a thoroughly enjoyable evening. The Quiz was won by the “Paul Brierley All Stars”. Following the quiz and a break for tea the Secretary announced that he had received information from: 1. The BAA regarding their Exhibition Meeting at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich on 27th June 2009. 2. Liverpool AS regarding their monthly meeting on January 16th 2009. This came in the form of a poster on the International Year of Astronomy format which can be used by Astronomical Societies to promote their events. A card has been received from Marie Utton in which she says: "Thank you very much for the lovely gesture, visiting Don's grave and leaving flowers. My thanks to ADAS for the kind thoughts of you all. Some of my family were here for Don's anniversary and when we went to the cemetery and saw the flowers we were all very touched at your remembrance." The next meeting will take place at 8:00pm on Friday 6th February when Dave Ogden will give a talk on “The Meaning of Light” 6th February 2009 February Present Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Jonathan Odom, Nick Odom, Peter Baugh, Norman Thurstan, Chris Suddick, Richard Bullock, Colin Eaves, Colin Bowler, Graham Sinagola, Paul Clark, Tony Aremia, Ged Burbeck, Anne Muldoon, John Tipping. Kevin introduced our speaker, Dave Ogden from Macclesfield AS his topic was: The Meaning of Light Dave's talk began with the thought that more than 3000 years ago man understood that the Sun had a bearing on life and that they worshipped it. Later the Egyptians worshipped Aton, the Sun God. The ancient Greeks originally believed that light came out of your eyes but later Leucippus and Democrates thought that light was particles which came into ones eyes. Euclid decided that light travelled in straight lines. Archimedes wrote a book on optics and tried to burn Roman ships using mirrors to focus the sun's rays on them. In 900 AD Ibn Al Haytham gave the first explaination of vision and made the first use of the Camera Obscura - Vermeer is thought to have used a Camera Obscura, which inverts images to aid his painting. Kepler made a Camera Obscura used in a dark room and went on explain the working of the eye. The early Egyptians possibly had telescopes, they had the capability of polishing glass. Galileo however made his own telescope in 1609. Robert Hooke, who was a wide ranging scientist and who worked with Wren and Isaac Newton amongst others made an early microscope. The refractive index of the medium through which light travels can alter the effects thus we get spectra by passing light throught a prism and we see water droplets acting as prisms to create rainbows. In nature there are many uses of light, for instance chlorophyll creates energy from light and Carbon Dioxide certain creatures glow using a photochemical process. In the 1800's Herschel showed that there was energy beyond the red end of the spectrum - Infra Red but it was Johanne Ritter who discovered Ultra Violet rays by use of Silver Nitrate. The Elctromagnetic spectrum was gradually built up after it was realised that light is an electromagnetic effect and used to identify various elements from the spectra that they emit. This of course is invaluable in identifying stars, as their emissions indicate their make up. In more recent times there has been a better understanding of light and Einstein and Planck found that light was indeed made up of particles - photons - but that they act in a wave like manner. Photons might take millions of years bouncing about and crashing into one another in the Sun but once they come to the surface they race away at around 186,000 miles per second. Galileo had long since worked out that light travels faster than sound and, of course, he was correct. Hau has been able to slow down the speed at which light travels and indeed has been able to stop it altogether at very low temperatures in in atomic condensates. There have been a variety of experiments in this area. Finally Dave concluded that light IS indeed particles ie Photons. Kevin thanked Dave and the meeting showed its appreciation. Geoff informed the meting that we have had notification that the Isle of White Star Party will be held on 26th to 30th March 2009, Also we have had notification of the Liverpool AS Conference details were passed around. There being no other business Kevin closed the meeting. 6th March 2009 March Present Kevin Thurstan, Nick Odom, Roger Livermore, Peter Baugh, Chris Suddick, Tony Aremia, Graham Sinagola, Mark Crossley, Paul Clark, Paul Brierley, Geoff Walton, Colin Eaves, Colin Bowler, Ged Birbeck + Chloe, Richard Bullock, John Tipping, Gerard Gilligan. Total 18. The meeting started a few minutes late due to electrical power problems. Kevin welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced our speaker (Gerard Gilligan). He then started with society business due to the power problem. The first item was whether we should have a presence at the Jodrell Bank Astro Party on May 9th. Kevin said he will get in touch with them as the society no longer has a contact there and find out the situation as to tickets for people who bring a scope along. We then got the power back we went straight into the evenings talk. Gerard started by telling us that he had been researching William Lassell in 1993 after a memorial lecture by Alan Chapman in Liverpool. We were told William Lassell born on 18th June 1799 in Bolton and was educated in Bolton & Rochdale. His father was a timber merchant but died in 1810 and William moved back to Toxteth where his family came from in 1815. He served an apprenticeship as a brewer from 1815-1822, then set up as a brewer in 1824 and married Maria King in 1827. William did well as a brewer due to the growth of Liverpool, its docks and immigration. Over his life he used his money to fund three large telescopes. His first was a 9 inch reflector and was instrumental in the building of Liverpool’s first observatory on waterloo dock in 1844. Gerard explained how William Lassell was held in high regard by fellow astronomers. He was a guest of William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Ross, and helped develop polishing machines for telescope mirrors. His next telescope was a 24inch version of his original. He would give dinner parties for up to 19 people and after the meal he would take them all out to his observatory and show them the sky through eyepieces he made himself. He discovered triton, Neptune’s largest moon, only 12 days after Neptune its self was discovered and shares the discovery of Saturn’s moon Hyperion with his great competitor William Cranch Bond. William also met Queen Victoria and prince Albert on their visit to Liverpool in 1851. He went to Malta 1861-1864, shipping his telescopes with him. While there he had a 48 inch open truss telescope built & tested then shipped over to him in Malta. He also had Albert Marth working for him making observations for many of his discoveries, many to do with Saturn. In 1864 he moved back to Maidenhead bringing his telescopes. He died in 1880of a heart attack and is buried with his wife who died 2 years later. Gerard was thanked for his talk and the meeting then took a break. On re-starting Gerard took questions. After again thanking Gerard, the chairman stated that the next meeting would be on Friday 3rd of April and that the speaker would be William Stewart from South Cheshire AS with a talk on Observing Satellites. The meeting was then closed. 3rd April 2009 April Present Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Tony Aremia, Peter Baugh, Norman Thurstan, Geoff Walton, Chris Suddick, Colin Eaves, Colin Bowler, Rosamund Tanner-Tremaine, Chris Tanner-Tremaine, Richard Bullock, Nick Odom, Jonathan Odom. William Stewart from South Cheshire AS was introduced by Kevin as our speaker for the evening. The title of his talk was: Observing Satellites There are 3 aspects to the life of a satellite, namely Launch - Orbit - Landing. How do they stay in orbit? As the earth is round they need to have sufficient energy to blast off and then get high enough so that they circle the earth and keep going round i. e. not crashing back down to earth. Satellites are always launched in an easterly direction which gives a saving of around 1000 mph in speed which has to be generated. The angle of inclination at launch depends upon the latitude of the launch site but steeper angles require bigger rockets, as of course do heavier payloads. The height at which the satellite operates and its orbit depends on the purpose to which it is to be put. . Spy satellites need not be very high but are in polar orbit to cover the earth whereas equatorial ones only cover a given area. Geostationary (26000 miles above the earth) are used for communication satellites which are very specific in the coverage that they give. The ISS operates at around 200 – 400 miles high and can be seen reflecting the light of the sun; if it went in areas of shadow it would require huge batteries to keep operating. In 1957 there was 1 satellite in orbit, Sputnik, but by 2009 there were some 13,000. There is lots of debris floating around in space everything from rocket bodies to tiny pieces, which never the less could puncture a space suit, so great care has to be taken in space. The antennae on the Hubble telescope have been pierced, thus one of the jobs astronauts have to carry out is to film the Shuttle before returning to earth to ensure that all is well. Naval Ocean Surveillance Satellites listen to signals from ships and can workout their position with great accuracy Re-entries are normally over the sea but Skylab came down over Australia – fortunately in an uninhabited area. Russian satellites frequently come down over land in relatively uninhabited areas. Weather satellites, in addition to following the weather, may be used to track launches as vapour trails from them can be easily picked up. For the future there will be increased global surveillance there will be more satellites and their uses disguised (camouflaged) for instance with an inflated balloon around them. There was no Society business discussed because of time constraints. 1st May 2009 May PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Roger Livermore, Peter Baugh, Steve Holt, Tony Aremia, Nick Apostocides, Fran Apostocides, Paul Brierley, Geoff Walton, Paul Clark, Colin Bowler, Colin Eaves. Kevin welcomed members and guests and introduced Phil Rogers from Chester AS. Phil spoke on the topic of: Optics in Astronomy and Space – Huygens to Hubble Phil has retired from Thales, manufacturers of lenses and is now a visiting professor at the Cranfield Institute. In 1655 Huygens who had devised a new and improved means of grinding lenses built a refracting telescope but it had to be many metres long to get a decent image and of course telescopes this long are very unstable which brings its own difficulties. The lenses were also imperfect and it wasn’t until 1758 that John Dolland came along with the achromatic lens. In the 19th century Airy produced a diffraction image of a star and Rayleigh worked on mirror accuracy. It is quite amazing that Huygens discovered that Saturn has a “flat solid” ring and a moon - Titan - in 1655, considering the equipment available to him. Newton believed that a single lens of any material would always split colours from light but blur due to chromatic aberration and this as not too bad with small lenses but double the size of the lens and you double the size of the blur. In 1758 John Dolland produced an improvement with a double lens of window glass (crown glass) and crystal which was 25 times better than a single lens. There was much experimenting with lenses and mirrors and finding the best equipment for the type of astronomy to be undertaken. Arrangements lenses and mirrors were made to cancel out interference patterns but there was usually a down side with, for instance, edge effects. Reflectors, we were told, give more problems with diffraction patterns but are better for double stars and worse for planets. In 1906 Lowell discovered the canals or canale on Mars however his interpretation may well have been due in part to an optical illusion. More recently the Hubble telescope used adaptive optics which need to be set up very accurately, 3 tests were applied to check the set up. The main test indicated that all was well but 2 subsidiary tests indicated otherwise, sadly these were believed and the field lens was set up incorrectly – by 1.3 mm and this is what caused the early problems. The later corrections have improved things enormously, as was illustrated with side by side photographs; although still not perfect it is phenomenal all the same. Adaptive optics used has unusually shaped mirrors and to reduce edge effects. Other modern telescopes include the Keck in Hawaii which has two 10m mirrors comprising of 36 segments. This instrument is in a controlled temperature environment and has a computer controlled primary mirror. The Giant Magellan Telescope has seven 8.4 m mirrors and gives images 10times sharper than Hubble. The TMT – thirty metre telescope mirror has some 950 segments some of which are manufactured in North Wales. Other modern telescopes use X-Ray optics which give remarkable images of very high energy (hot) objects Phil gave us a very entertaining and informative talk and was thanked by Kevin and the whole audience. Following the talk Kevin reported on a NWGAS meeting. They are trying to organise an imaging workshop and are looking for contributors or “lecturers”. A Star party is to be held at Jodrell Bank on Saturday 9th May 2009, several members showed interest. On June 5th there will be an open imagery meeting. BAA are having a membership drive and are offering 18months membership for the price of 1 year, forms are available from the Secretary. In the absence of the Treasurer, speakers’ expenses of £30 were paid by Kevin Thurstan. 5th June 2009 June PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Colin Bowler, Mark Crossley, Steve Holt, Norman Thurstan, Paul Clark, Chris Suddick, Geoff Walton, Colin Eaves, Tony Aremia, Peter Baugh, Stephen McHugh, Roger Livermore, John Tipping, Richard Bullock, Ged Birbeck. Kevin welcomed members to the meeting and congratulated Graham Sinagola who “starred” in the recent Sky at Night programme. On this occasion the evening was given over to members’ presentations of some of their images taken in recent times. Paul Clark showed some images taken with his 6inch refractor in La Palma, these were simple photographs but stacked(X10) Paul illustrated an incredible improvement that could be made by varying the contrast on the computer some others were taken using a 220mm instrument with a tracking mount. Colin Bowler had visited La Palma with Paul and showed some terrestrial shots showing the observatories, and also the general terrain. He explained that the Trade Winds bring cloud during the day but that they clear at night. Mark Crossley showed some of his highly technical photographs and explained some the tricks of the trade for instance using a Hyper Star set up and then replacing it with a camera. Photographs of M81/82 taken with a 3 minute exposure showed some activity as indicated by red colouration of hydrogen. There was a good deal of light pollution at the time and a good deal of processing was required. A Fish Eye photograph of this back garden gave a very good illustration of light pollution in the area. Kevin thanked all the contributors and also Paul and John Tipping for their help at Jodrell Bank which went down well with the general public. Another event will be held at Jodrell Bank on August 8th when there will hopefully also be a BBQ and again in December a Star Party is planned. ADAS can now be visited ont th Clubz site There was a NWGAS meeting at the end of April which Kevin attended - he has a copy of the Minutes - the Website is to be updated. NWGAS is trying to get an imaging workshop and memebers should speak to Kevin if interested. The NW group still needs an FAS representative. Mention was made of the Campaign for Dark Skies and NWGAS newsgrooups. Kevin is looking for a speaker from the Society for the November meeting - any offers will be gratefully accepted. The next meeting is the AGM which will be held on Friday 4th September. There was no other business and Kevin closed the meeting. 4th September 2009 September 9 paid-up members and 3 visitors present. The Chairman welcomed all to the meeting. Apologies for absence were heard from Norman Thurstan, Paul Brierley and Geoff Flood. Minutes of the 443rd AGM were read and accepted. Treasurer gave his report: · Room rent accounts form most of expenditure. We are now paid up on rent for all of last year and this year. · Room rent has been doubled to £20 per meeting – it was suggested we need to discuss a larger and cheaper room for future monthly meetings. · Noted that accounts are provisional, as the previous secretary still receives all correspondence. · All accounts in order Appointment of Officers: · Due to the lack of paid-up members, it was stated that decisions could not be made at this AGM – it was not quorate. The meeting thus decided to discuss issues informally. · The Chairman stated that he and the current Secretary both wished to step down. The current Treasurer stated he was willing to continue for another year · The Chairman called for nominations. No nominations or volunteers to serve were forthcoming for either Secretary or Chairman. · Chairman proposed an Extraordinary General Meeting in December to decide the future of the society. Geoff proposed this should be later, in January. December was agreed in informal discussion. The Chairman agreed to stand until that point in order to continue the society. · The Chairman noted that officers feel they have little support from the general membership – particularly the events and fundraising secretary in relation to support for the Timperley Country Fair, our main fundraising event. · The Chairman described the role of secretary in response to a request · The Chairman proposed the role of vice-secretary and vice chairman, to make the main roles less onerous. No-one was in disagreement during informal discussion. · The Chairman asked if anyone would prefer a different meeting night. No-one wanted any day in particular other than Friday night. Colin B proposed a vote when sufficient people were present, as agreement would be unlikely otherwise. · Informal discussion proceeded on the meeting room size, as it was agreed that some meetings were very busy for the current room size. A consensus was reached that the current venue was sufficient for smaller meetings only. Timperley Village Hall was suggested, but it was noted that this was also 50% (£10) more expensive, and was not feasible at the current membership rate and number. · Possibilities for more outdoor meetings were discussed. Light pollution was seen as a significant problem locally, and sites close to Timperley but away from immediate LP were suggested. Siddington was the most popular suggestion, but no consensus was reached. · Public Liability Insurance was discussed. The Treasurer stated we were not covered at present – particularly for new members, visitors, or external events. This was seen as a problem, with Jodrell Bank outreach events in particular noted as a cause for concern. · A need to stimulate group outings to local sites was discussed, following on from the previous discussion. Weather, lack of time, lack of interest and lack of access to newsgroup postings were seen as significant barriers to organisation. · However, it was noted that the newsgroup is seen as the only real means of communication within the society. The Chairman proposed that all members should supply email addresses for officers to communicate. A sheet of paper was circulated for those present to give their email addresses. · Level of subscription – it was decided (as far as is possible for an in-quorate AGM) that the present level of subscription would continue at £20 for adults, and £1 for minors. · Geoff asked for all pertinent discussions from this AGM to be distributed in the October meeting, for discussion at the EGM in December. ColinB agreed to make the meeting minutes available for the October meeting. · NWGAS – The Chairman reported that he was prevented from attending the recent meeting due to family illness, and no other member wished to attend when requested, so no representative from ADAS was present. · Geoff suggested a monthly newsletter of some form to try and inform people of events, meetings and possibilities for dark-sky observing. The Chairman stated that, as ever, it was difficult to get anyone to volunteer and commit to producing it. · Difficulties in gaining control of various areas of the ADAS website were discussed. No consensus was reached, but it was stated that several areas would be more accessible to members shortly. Ged entered the AGM at this time, and stated that he would get the current owner/webmaster to remove redundant links. · Timperley Country Fair: Ged stated that it was on September 12th, and he requested assistance at the Scout Hut the on Friday 11th September to organise and prepare. · Jodrell Bank Star Party was discussed, and the consensus of the members that had attended was that it had been a very successful and enjoyable evening. More attendance was requested for the next Jodrell event on Sat 12th December. · Ged asked for fliers which the Chairman had distributed at the previous Jodrell event to be made available for distribution at the Country Fair. · The Chairman asked for volunteers to get fliers distributed to local libraries. Geoff also agreed to update the Stockport Telescope and Binocular Centre with the new website address. ------------ Tea Break ------------ · It was suggested that groups and dark-sky observing visits should be formally organised, possibly following each monthly meeting. · Society equipment was discussed. It was suggested that all society equipment holders should bring in equipment at the next meeting so that members could see what was available. · It was agreed that further discussion and work was required on the ADAS website. · Ged asked for consideration that a binocular observation session be arranged regularly following every monthly meeting. · Ged again asked for help in organising the Timperley Country Fair, volunteers to be present at 9pm on Friday 11th September. · 21:25 the Chairman brought the meeting to a close.aid 2nd October 2009 October PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Nick Odom, Norman Thurstan, Steve Holt, Geoff Walton, Roger Livermore, Colin Bowler, Tony Aremia, Elaine Rutherford, Adam Rutherford, Scott Rutherford, Chris Suddick, Graham Sinagola, Peter Baugh, John Tipping. Kevin Kilburn (Speaker) Total 17. Kevin welcomed members to the meeting and introduced the speaker for the evening, Kevin Kilburn from Manchester AS, Kevin’s talk was entitled:- A NEW LOOK AT AN OLD MOON Kevin introduced himself saying that he has been observing since 1954. He has seen 2 Apollo launches and as a member of Manchester AS has for some time been imaging the moon as one of a group of people with different specialities, a group which includes Phil Masding and Mike Tyrell. Kevin uses a low tech approach. Early work used film photography but the cost of using rolls of film from which only the odd shot was worth keeping. Eventually, Kevin bought himself a digital camera, which a big improvement and then he discovered that he could take video which enabled him to stack frames and improve even more. Operating in Movie Mode he can achieve the equivalent of 100ft focal length. By this means it is possible to see craters down to a mile in diameter following stacking and cleaning up. A good deal of work has concentrated on Aristarchus, a 40mile wide crater. From the pictures produced it is now suspected that this is a live volcanic area. Although some say that the moon is “dead” several astronomers claim to have seen glowing in some areas. In 1968 Kevin contacted Patrick Moore to say that he believed that he had seen such a glow and by chance so had Patrick, contact with NASA led to them asking astronauts to look at Aristarchus and they also reported glowing. Colour on the Moon The project at Manchester AS is looking at Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) and stratification. Some astronomers had decided that Aristarchus is decidedly yellow, a colour plate in the Larouse Encyclopaedia of Astronomy, of a painting, shows colours all over the moon. Observation indicated that this was correct and with the help of digital photography we can show that this is correct. Kevin pointed out that once you see the colours they become obvious, the colours are best seen at the full moon of course, but contours etc. at lower light. Dark areas, which are blueish, are Titanium, brown areas Iron, Yellow Basalt etc. Thus by means of colour we can learn something of the geology of the Moon. Aristarchus is seen to be mainly blue but with a yellow rim, there is also pink and oranges to be seen. Phil Masding and Mike Tyrell have developed software known as Planet Warp which corrects shapes distorted by the curvature of the Moon and Plato, which normally appears to be elliptical now appears round - which is what pictures taken from Apollo show. Encouraged by Patrick Moore this was published in the Sky at Night magazine. Phil and Mike have also developed some software for “Colour Draping” where colour is lifted mathematically from a picture and then dropped onto a picture of the same area but taken at low illumination thus showing stratification but in the correct colour, brilliant results are achieved by this means. Multi Spectral Polarimetry. Kevin admitted to not fully understanding the maths of this technique but the results tend to speak for themselves. We have had high resolution and colour but now we can bring in Polarisation, using filters. Pictures take by this means show the texture of particles (smooth ones being different from coarse ones). The Russians have suggested using the Hubble telescope with colour and polarising filters, in this manner it should be possible to map out suitable geological areas for exploration. Sunlight is not polarised but scattered light is so using multi-spectra polarisation we get quite different images which tell us something about the structure of the surface. At a very high degree of polarisation we can see particle structure not seen by any other means. According to Umov the albedo /polarisation should give a straight line but variations from this are caused by scatter by several different particle sizes. This type of plot has been used to examine different traces left around craters following meteor strikes. Kevin finished off by talking about a white are on the moon which as yet is unexplained but which also has a magnetic field. It is thought that this might be the result of the magnetism of the meteor which crashed into the moon at that point. Kevin Thurstan thanked Kevin Kilburn for his interesting and informative talk. Following the talk there was a small amount of Society business. Kevin thanked all those who had contributed to the stall at the Timperley Country Fair, following which Tony Aremia has paid £175.30 into the bank. All the prizes in the tombola were gone very early on. Many people asked about ADAS meetings. Chris Suddick was asked if we could provide examiner(s) for the local Brownies Astronomy badge. Chris has agreed but would like some volunteers to assist. The leaflets, prepared for the Jodrell Bank Star Party, have been distributed and the Secretary agreed to put one in each of the local libraries. The next meeting, on November 6th, will be an open meeting when members can bring new images or equipment to show to members, but also those people holding pieces of Society equipment were asked to bring them in so that other members can see what is available. On Thursday 15th October Tim O’Brian from Jodrell Bank will speak to a meeting of Manchester AS at MMU starting at 7:30pm. There is no charge for this event. There being no other business the Chairman closed the meeting. 4th December 2009 December MINUTES OF THE 451st MEETING HELD ON FRIDAY 4th DECEMBER 2009 EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING PRESENT Kevin Thurstan (Chairman), Geoff Flood, Graham Sinagola, Geoff Walton, Steve Holt, Stephen Mc Hugh, John Tipping, Richard Bullock, Colin Eaves, Paul Brierley, Chris Suddick, Tony Aremia, Ged Burbeck. Total 13 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Peter Baugh, Roger Livermore, Mark Crossley, Norman Thurstan. The meeting was called because of the lack of members who were prepared to stand for office at the AGM. Kevin opened the meeting by listing the offices to be filled, namely: Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Events Organiser. There was some discussion about the various positions and it was suggested that, to ease the burden, the posts could perhaps be split and the work shared. CHAIRMAN The way matters are handled at present the Chairman, not only chairs meetings but also arranges the programme. The possibility of having a “Speakers Secretary” to arrange talks was considered and under those circumstances Chris Suddick agreed to take the position of Chairman and was proposed by Kevin seconded by Geoff and elected. Chris stated that he would like to return to having more structured meetings with the minutes being read out each month, so that those without computer access are informed and could comment. Kevin reported that with one exception speakers are booked for the remainder of this ADAS year to June and he agreed to complete the programme so that an incoming Speakers Secretary would not need to begin looking for speakers until about March 2010. The position was left open for the time being. Kevin explained that speakers were found from ADAS members or from one of the lists of speakers provided by the BAA or by NWGAS. Contact is normally made via e-mail. SECRETARY Geoff Flood stated that he had some difficulty with minute taking but was prepared to continue as “General Secretary” which was approved by the meeting. Graham Sinagola agreed to become “Minutes Secretary” and was proposed by Kevin seconded by Tony and elected. TREASURER Richard Bullock has agreed to remain as Treasurer and was elected. Richard reported that a number of members have agreed to Giftaid their subscriptions on which the Society can claim the tax which the individual would have paid on that sum of money. This has rebate has not been claimed for several years so we should get a reasonable windfall from HM Customs and Revenue. Venue There was some discussion about the venue for the Society‘s meetings, some members feel that the room at the Scout hall is too small. Various options were discussed Graham mentioned the hall at Bowdon Parish church which appears to be ideal for our needs, although it would be difficult to get to for members travelling by public transport. Geoff F agreed to once more investigate Timperley Village Hall. Kevin reported that a list of Society equipment and names of those holding it is available on the Yahoo website. The question was asked, “Do we need anything else?” A laptop for use with PowerPoint presentations was agreed and Ged agreed to get prices for a decent second hand one. It was also suggested that as the mount for the Large binoculars had been sold (without agreement of the whole Society) a suitable tripod should be purchased. Paul B agreed to examine the possibilities. It was reported that we have been invited to once more participate in the Jodrell Bank Star Party on Saturday 12th December 2009.

Find what's happening right now, from the weather, to the sky view to the lunar phases and sun activity, and plan for your next observation. Weather Sunrse/Sunset Sky View Sun Moon Satellites Aurora Solar System CURRENT SKY Weather Forecast Weather Live Sky View Sky View Solar Activity Live Latest Images of the Sun Visible Light Photosphere (intensitygram) Guide to Solar Observing Sun Water Vapour Map Sunrise/Sunset Sunrse/Sunset Solar Activity Aurora Forecast See Aurora live Lunar Phase Live Spot the Station Aurora Activity Current Solar System Moon Satellites Aurora Solar System

Look at fellow members' pictures of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) to get some ideas from peers, or even smile at the wonder of your own picture by contacting us! Near Earth Objects Got a picture to share? Contact Us! Read our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy so you understand what will be done with your work once submitted.