ASE member John Murrell gave us a fascinating insight into the Gaia second data release.

John provided us with the links to the videos & Animations plus the tools. He also included a few other links that people may find of interest and there is a lot of material on the web both about the mission and the results.

YouTube video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3z_pxltHU

From John:

Links to the videos and animations in my talk

More information on the mission than I gave: https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/content/-/article/gaia-satellite-mission

General Gaia Information including latest results

https://sci.esa.int/web/gaia

Bending of light by solar system planets

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/media-gallery/videos scroll down to @Light Bending in the Solar System

There is also some information on the Gaia Scanning law I did not cover.

The two movies below are also on this page with a description

First Gaia General Video

http://wpc.50e6.edgecastcdn.net/8050E6/mmedia-http/download/public/videos/2013/12/036/1312_036_AR_EN.mp4

Second Gaia Video

https://www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/29201/304538/Gaia_SkyScan_04_400p.mov/6a3f29f5-4c3a-4a16-bc68-75948884c9c1

Variable Star colours in the Gaia HR Diagram (page has the animation embedded in it)

https://sci.esa.int/web/gaia/-/60239-variable-stars-in-the-hertzsprung-russell-diagram

Parallax & Proper motion Animation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyQdK56Qee0&list=PLbyvawxScNbtfaJAmFlrnzdE0d32GNidK&index=10&t=0s

GaiaSky Documentation & download instructions

https://gaia-sky.readthedocs.io/_/downloads/en/2.2.1/pdf/

ESA Sky

https://sky.esa.int/?target=315.37277083333333%2016.18791388888889&hips=DSS2+color&fov=0.20090372554035021&cooframe=J2000&sci=true&lang=en

Aladin Sky Atlas

https://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/

TOPCAT

http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/topcat/

Gerry Gilmore’s RAS lecture on ‘Gaia the 6D Milky Way is coming to you’ (DR1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KepdLqBibw

YouTube ESA Gaia videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbyvawxScNbtfaJAmFlrnzdE0d32GNidK

Useful DR2 Guide https://www.cosmos.esa.int/documents/29201/1773953/Gaia+DR2+primer+version+1.3.pdf/a4459741-6732-7a98-1406-a1bea243df79?t=1581668739161

Gaia Alerts ( I spoke of these but they were not in the presentation)

http://gsaweb.ast.cam.ac.uk/alerts/home

All sorts of strange light curves in this list – includes micro-lensing, binary stars, YSO’s with evidence of periodicity, Super Novae, Etc