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
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
Second Gaia Video
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
Aladin Sky Atlas
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