Our first meeting of 2023 was by ASE member Viktoria Urban who took us on a stage from our Losing the Sky event in June 2021 by telling us how the issues with space debris and “dead” satellites are being addressed. Nigel Goodman also gave us a run-down of what’s in the sky for January 2023.

President Mark Phillips introduced the meeting with a few News items including:

  • 2023 is a significant year for the Society since we will enter our 100th year on 15 Oct 2023 with our Centenary falling on 15 Oct 2024
  • welcoming 4 new members (membership now stands at 189)
  • Alan Pickup’s Sky In January 2023 on our website
  • our next Telescope Help Shop on 25 Feb is now FULL but we will continue to run as often as there is demand
  • the ROE donated some leftover kit to us for members to choose from
  • the next Image of the Quarter competition for Jan – Mar 2023 is now open for ASE members
  • upcoming meetings

Ria updated us with the current statistics, issues and events and explained what industries and agencies are doing to try and mitigate the problem as well as the technology currently and planned to be available. Also how the UK and Scottish governments are approaching the issue.

Nigel Goodman covered the highlights for the month plus details of the Sun. Moon, planets and comets, and also gave a general overview of which constellations were visible and interesting objects within, all illustrated with images by ASE members from our Flickr group.

MP