Watch the Perseid meteor shower this August 2021
The Perseids, one of the best meteor showers of the year, reaches its peak on the night of August 12-13, not long after New Moon, so conditions are quite favourable. Some will be visible each night from 23 July to 20 August.
Our Autumn Programme 2021
We've got a great programme of talks and events lined up this Autumn. Here's a taster of what's to come. More talks are still to be confirmed.
2 July Meeting Report
We had an excellent talk from Prof. Giles Hammond of the University of Glasgow on a very interesting project he's running with his students. Alan Pickup also gave us a very comprehensive rundown of what's in the night sky in July and August.
Spectroscopy – a practical approach for amateurs meeting report
Tom Field introduced us to the principles, history and importance of spectroscopy and what you can do as a backyard astronomer with basic equipment to help understand the nature of our Universe.
Losing the Sky meeting report
What a fantastic set of panellists we had for the Losing the Sky event last night. The talk was very wide-ranging and covered just about all the issues associated with the problem of mega-constellations and the pollution of the night sky. Watch the video if you missed it. You won't find a better overview of the topic.
Partial eclipse live stream
The weather wasn't perfect but we saw the partial eclipse of the Sun through the clouds as did almost a 1000 others on our YouTube live stream.
4 June Meeting Report
Prof. Petri Vaisanen, Director of the South African Astronomical Observatory gave us a very interesting presentation on the "South African Large Telescope (SALT) and SAAO – responding to astronomy in the 2020s". This was followed by the Sky in June from ASE member Nigel Goodman and then our AGM for members only.
Catherine Heymans – New Astronomer Royal for Scotland
Congratulations to Prof. Catherine Heymans who was officially announced as the new Astronomer Royal for Scotland today and the first woman to hold the post. Catherine is also our new Honorary President and an enthusiastic and infectious communicator of astronomy.
Seeing the Invisible: The Dark Side of the Universe.
A major highlight of this year so far, was this incredible and mind-expanding talk given by Prof. Catherine Heymans, "Seeing the invisible - The Dark Side of the Universe".
Losing the Sky event
We'll be hosting a very special event on 15 June about the problems caused for astronomers by satellites. "Losing the Sky" is an online live public discussion with Andy Lawrence, Brian Eno, Catherine Heymans, Mark McCaughrean from ESA, Amy Mehlman from Viasat, and many others.
Meeting report: “Planet 9 or Planet Nein?” and “Sky in May”
Dr Samantha Lawler gave a detailed and fascinating technical explanation of what astronomers understand about the bodies in our outer Solar System, discussing theories for their formation. Alan Pickup then gave a wonderful Sky in May presentation which was, as always, full of topical gems of knowledge.
Venus Tablets of Ammisaduqa and Scope Talks.
Dr Bruce Vickery's talk was a fascinating in-depth analysis of the origin and importance of a famous cuneiform tablet describing astronomical observations of Venus. We also had two Scope Talks from Pat Devine and Hugh Somerville.
Missions to Near Earth Asteroids & April Sky Report
Dr John Davies gave an exciting talk introducing us to Near Earth Asteroids (NEO's) and discussed in detail two ongoing sample return missions to NEO's.
ASE projects
We started out with the ASE Messier project, have now added the Caldwell and Lunar 100 projects too.
Nova in Cassiopeia
Yuji Nakamura (Kameyama, Mie, Japan) has reported the discovery of a possible nova, PNV J23244760+6111140, on March 18.4236. It is relatively bright at mag. 8 and may brighten more so worth a look. Here's a finder chart prepared by Alan [...]
Comet Tales
We knew it would be good but it was really quite special, our talk from ASE member Prof. Randall Stevenson on Comet Tales.
Meeting report 5th March 2021
A fascinating talk about Edinburgh's local Rocket company by SKYRORA's Head of Launch, Robin Hague followed by a comprehensive tour of the night Sky in March by Alan Pickup
Expanding the ASE Technical Support
To help spread the workload maintaining the website Mark has enlisted some Elves