We had an excellent talk from Mary McIntyre on the History of Women in Astronomy – Part 1. You can see the talk in the attached video on or YouTube channel. Mary will gives Part 2 next year on 16 February 2024.
Our President, Mark Phillips also introduced our Centenary plans since we entered our 100th year on 15 October 2023. We will celebrate during 2024, culminating in an an event on 15 October 2024. He also read out the first paragraphs of the History of the ASE, written for us by ASE member, Randall Stevenson:
At a meeting in October 1933, the President, J.C. Johnston, noted with pleasure – even some relief – that the Edinburgh Astronomical Association had survived into a tenth season of activities. Only a few years afterwards, as we’ll see, he might have been still more cheerful – able to point to outstanding recent successes, and a much more secure financial position. Nevertheless, there was good reason to look back with satisfaction on the first years of the Association (later renamed the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh). Established in 1924, it had drawn on the success of a series of lectures delivered to the WEA – the Workers’ Educational Association, which had been offering free Adult Education in Edinburgh since 1912. The lecturer was R.A. Sampson, Professor of Astronomy in the University of Edinburgh and Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1910 to 1937. In the years following the Great War, he was a world authority on stellar temperatures and on astronomical chronometry: a crater on the Moon was later named in his honour.
Following his lecture series, a small committee developed plans for an Association which could continue involving the public in astronomy, and a first meeting was held on 15 October 1924, in the Royal Society of Arts Hall in George Street.