What a very entertaining and involving talk we had from Dr Alastair Bruce of the ROE! He brought along his Lego Apollo 11 model and took us through the whole journey with a little orbital mechanics thrown in too.
Also at our meeting:
Download the ASE presentation as a PDF
- President Andrew Farrow welcomed 3 new members, including our 100th member, Tom Donohue, who was presented with a branded ASE mug
- Horst presented the Sky in September
- Andrew updated us on our ambitious plans for the new session:
- Bringing the Cooke telescope on Calton Hill back to life
- Group observing at Newbattle Abbey College
- Finishing our 4-Steps to the Stars programme
- ROE Doors Open days (28/29 Sept)
- International Observe the Moon Night (5 Oct)
- Transit of Mercury public observing (11 Nov)
- Ongoing discussions about our own observatory
- Regular meetings with a variety of speakers and topics (courtesy of Carl Dennis)
- There is now a Code of Conduct on the Members site about using Newbattle Abbey for observing
- There is also a WhatsApp group for observing notifications – details on the Members site
- Mark Phillips gave a report on the very successful Charles Piazzi Smyth Symposium
- Andrew covered news in astronomy and space that had caught his attention
- Hugh Sommerville gave a brief presentation on some of his space topics of interest
- Sean Wixted mentioned that he had received brochures from Eclipse World Tours for the Chile 2020 solar eclipse, if members are interested