The main talk was given by Prof Colin Cunningham of Edinburgh University who described the many engineering and scientific challenges associated with the building and future operation of the ELT. It’s 39m mirror(s) having a larger area that all the existing research telescope mirrors (>1m) in operation today.
Download ASE slides as a PDF
Also at the meeting:
- The President paid tribute to Prof. John Brown OBE, who died on the 16th Nov. As well as Astronomer Royal for Scotland, John was also an Honorary President of the ASE since 1995.
- Sean updated the Society on the AstroBoost initiative. The ROE will be holding a training day for all successful Societies to be able to utilise the outreach material on the James Webb telescope. The ASE will apply to be part of the programme before the January deadline.
- Horst described the highlights of the night sky in Dec
- The 4-Steps programme is progressing with the next Telescope Help Shop on the 29th Feb 2020.
- Peter Black updated the meeting on the Strategy Development Workshop held to discuss the ASE’s future and the work streams that came out of the meeting.
- Andrew gave on overview of topics that had caught his attention in astronomy and space.
- Hugh Somerville gave a short presentation on the ISS and the highlights of Alexei Leonov, the Russian Cosmonaut space walk.
The next meeting was announced as focussing on Light Pollution and it is anticipated that the other usual agenda items will be omitted apart from the Sky in Feb. The audience for this event will include a number of invited organisations representatives