Cosmos 2012 – April 13th to 15th

The 20th annual Cosmos Star Party was once again presented by Midlands Astronomy Club in the rural and secluded surroundings of Annaharvey Equestrian Farm, Tullamore in County Offaly. This location affords MAC many advantages, such as being 3 miles from Tullamore on the Portarlington Road, and thus away from most of the light pollution, private surroundings, secure location, and overall a great and relaxed atmosphere.

The speakers this year included:

• Thierry Legault, world-renowned French astrophotographer

• Girvan McKay, Midlands Astronomy Club

• Eamon Ansbro, Kingsland Observatory, Roscommon

• Kevin Berwick, Dublin

• Dermot Gannon, Midlands Astronomy Club

• Apostolos Christou, Armagh Observatory

• Lawrence Rigney, Midlands Astronomy Club

This was an excellent weekend of astronomy with great people, great craic, and largely clear skies. Some stayed out observing until 02:30am on the Sunday morning! Photos of the event are available here…

Further details on the MAC website here..

Magnificent Image of M31 by Martin Campbell

Those of you who have seen the astrophotography of IAA member Martin Campbell will know that he is a master of the art. Martin's latest creation is well up to the usual standard – this is a stack of 131 frames of 5 mins each taken through a Takahashi Epsilon 180 Astrograph with a Canon 5D Mk2 camera on the end and post-processing work in Photoshop CS5. Stunning! Click on the image to access the full size version – warning, 3.5MB file