All posts by iaaadmin

Public Astronomy Night at Slieve Gullion, Sunday 30th November

The IAA will be holding another public astronomy outreach event, this time at a new dark sky venue, the visitor’s centre at Slieve Gullion Forest Park, near the village of Meigh, SW of Newry. 
 
VENUE: Visitors Centre, Slieve Gullion Forest Park. •Signposted off B113 from Newry to Forkhill, past the village of Meigh. It has nice dark skies. The entrance is at N 54 deg 6′ 36.5″; W: 6 deg 24′ 19″
 
•Café in the VC for hot refreshments. Come along if you can, bring a portable telescope if you have one.
 
This event will begin at 6.00, and finish by about 9.30 – 10.00, depending on weather.
We will have our usual selection of telescopes and binoculars for observing (or on display of cloudy), an exhibition including meteorites, and a public lecture.
 
All are welcome, and admission is free.
 
Hot refreshments will be provided.

Check no credit check loans guaranteed australia centrelink.

IAA 40th Anniversary Dinner – Friday 28th November

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the formation of the IAA (formerly the Belfast Centre of the Irish Astronomical Society) in 1974, we are having a Celebratory / Seasonal Dinner on Friday 28 November, in a private suite in the Maynard Sinclair Pavilion, Upper Newtownards Road, Stormont, Belfast. We have got an excellent deal on this so it's not to be missed!
 
There is free parking at the venue. Directions to venue will be given later
 
As well as the meal, we will have some light-hearted fun, including an after-dinner address by one of the top astronomers in the country, Prof Alan Fitzsimmons of QUB: this will be not so much about astronomy, as all the interesting, embarrassing and hilarious things that happen in the background when pursuing a career as a top professional observational astronomer. 
 
There will also be a ‘rogues gallery’ of photos and memorabilia of various member and events over the years – you might find yourself in the ‘Most Wanted’ section. Plus a fun quiz with spot prizes!
 
We hope to get a really good attendance at this event, which is open to partners and friends too if you wish.
 
If you wish to attend this event, please complete and return the form available here…….

IAA Lecture, 19th November, Dr Mike Simms – “What meteorites tell us about the early Solar System”

How can we determine the age of a meteorite, or even the Solar System? How can we unravel the processes that formed Earth and the rest of the Solar System from the primordial dust cloud? The presence, or absence, of particular elements and isotopes in meteorites and their components, and the physics and chemistry of those elements, provides abundant clues to what happened in those first few million years.

Ulster Museum Palaeontologist Dr Mike Simms is also one of the UK's foremost experts on meteorites and will explain all in this lecture which is bound to provide a fascinating account of what we can learn from rocks from space!

This lecture will as usual be in the Bell Lecture theatre, Physics building, main QUB Campus.
 
The lecture is free and open to all, including free refreshments. Venue: the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen's University, Belfast, at 7.30 p.m. 
 
Thanks to the Astrophysics Research Centre, QUB, for help in hosting these lectures.

 

Huge Fireball over Ireland and Scotland

At 17:30 on Tuesday 18th November IAA President Terry Moseley received a call from an IAA member at the Met Office in Aldergrove reporting a fireball "as bright as the Moon". The still frame above was taken from Low Craighead Farm, near Girvan, Ayrshire (please contact us if this is yours!) and shows the fireball, and to the right of it, Altair, a first magnitude star, the 12th brightest in the sky!
 
Terry was on to the BBC who carried the report on Evening Extra on Radio Ulster, and on the BBC NI News website here…. 
 
Eye-witness reports came flooding in with over 40 being received from as far afield as Dublin, North West England and Western Scotland, and some video footage was sent to Armagh Observatory from Girvan, Ayrshire.
 
The reports are being evaluated and responded to, but this looks very interesting indeed! 
 
Here is the first report from Donald Ferguson at the Met Office, Aldergrove….
 
Fireball sighting.
 
Time 17:27 and approx 15 secs. Watch checked against online clock.
 
Looking NE, from Aldergrove, very bright, fireball observed, head was brilliant white with a touch of pale turquoise in it and there seemed to be a translucent ‘tail’ of dark orange/brown behind, so I had to do a double take to ensure that is wasn’t a firework. Magnitude approx -9 or -10, so brighter than Iridium satellites at their best and about 4 times the size. The head also seemed to be quite elongated and pointed in an ellipse shape.
 
I saw it heading down towards the horizon at an angle of approx 15-20 deg, from a compass bearing of 070 deg to 030 deg, and lasting for approx 5 seconds. It disappeared steadily, without a flash, just getting smaller and smaller, and the last I saw of it was at a compass bearing of 030 deg, and lower than in the sky than Cappella was at the time.
There was no audible sound with it.
 
There were 4 witnesses, including myself and we all agree this is a fair assessment of events.
 
Hope that helps,
 
Regards
 
 

IAA Lecture 5th November – Prof Andy Shearer: “Feeding the giant – science possibilities of the next generation of extremely large telescopes.”

Synopsis: "Over the next ten years a number of new giant telescopes will come on line – these include the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and in X-rays, Athena. Each one of these will dramatically change our view of the universe. At a recent workshop in Galway, "Speed and Sensitivity: Expanding Astronomical Horizons with ELTs" the possibilities from the current generation of instruments as well as the next generation of instruments for ELTs were discussed. This talk will look at what science is possible with ELTs and what questions will be addressed and hopefully answered by ELTs."

Some of the new horizons being opened up by these developments are mind-blowing, so this will be a fascinating talk.

This lecture will as usual be in the Bell Lecture theatre, Physics building, main QUB Campus.

 The lecture is free and open to all, including free refreshments. Venue: the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen's University, Belfast, at 7.30 p.m. 

 Thanks to the Astrophysics Research Centre, QUB, for help in hosting these lectures.

 

World Space Week – Elements of the Universe, Ulster Museum 11th October

The IAA will be running a major public astronomy & space outreach event in conjunction with the Ulster Museum on Saturday 11th October.

This will be at the Museum on Stranmillis Road, from 11:00 to 16:30.

This will comprise:
Starshows with a space theme in the ever-popular Stardome (courtesy of Armagh Planetarium) at 45 minute intervals starting at 11.00.

Solar observing from the Museum forecourt, weather permitting. We will have various special safe solar telescopes to show incredible views of our nearest star, which still poses many puzzles for astronomers.

If it's cloudy, we'll have the telescopes indoors as part of our major exhibition.

Exhibition: all things astronomical and space will be on display, including meteorites which are actual rocks from space, and various items of space memorabilia

Meet our own 'Ulsternaut', Derek Heatly from Groomsport, who will be the first person from N. Ireland, if not all Ireland, to fly into space with Virgin Galactic.

Ask a question about astronomy or space – our Experts will be there to try to answer them.

IAA World Space Week Lecture, 8th October: Prof Don Kurtz, UCLAN: “The Kepler Mission: Exoplanets and Asteroseismology”

Prof Kurtz is a very highly regarded speaker on a wide variety of topics, and this one for World Space Week will focus on one of the most successful space missions ever: the Kepler Spacecraft. This has now detected well over 1,000 planets going round other stars, some of which are like planets in our own solar system, including a few which are fairly like Earth, and some which are amazingly different from our own familiar ones.

The spacecraft's detectors are so sensitive that they can even detect 'starquakes' on distant stars. Come along and be amazed at the fantastic findings from this space mission.

The lecture is free and open to all, including free refreshments. Venue: the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen's University, Belfast, at 7.30 p.m.
 
Thanks to the Astrophysics Research Centre, QUB, for help in hosting these lectures.

IAA New Season Opening Lecture 24th Sept: Latest Science Results from Rosetta, by Leo Enright

The Rosetta spacecraft is now in a sort of ‘orbit’ round Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, sending back some jawdropping photos. After studying the ‘binary’ surface in more detail, it will land a probe on the surface. 
 
This talk by Ireland’s leading science broadcaster and journalist, will reveal the latest findings from the fantastic Rosetta spacecraft at Comet C-G. As you can see from some of the images at NASA Science here…, the comet is weird – absolutely unlike anything we’ve seen before. And Leo usually updates his talk from the Internet just about 10 minutes before he’s due to start, freexxx4u.com so it will be the VERY latest information. Not to be missed!
 
The lecture is free and open to all, including free refreshments. Venue: the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen’s University, Belfast, at 7.30 p.m. 
 
Thanks to the Astrophysics Research Centre, QUB, for help in hosting these lectures.

The Noctilucent Cloud Season begins

From around the end of May until the beginning of August these mysterious white clouds can be seen from Northern latitudes. As luck would have it, Northern Ireland is ideally placed for observing these clouds – further north and the sky is too light, further south and the clouds are too close to the horizon to be seen, although in recent years there have been sightings from Southern England.

Last year (2013) the first sightings occurred on 15th May which is unusually early, and there was a spectacular display on 31st May – see images from IAA members here…. This year however the first sightings occurred on 24th May which is more normal. We can expect several display over the next two months. In order to spot them you'll need to be looking towards where the Sun would be if it wasn't 6-16degrees below the horizon, so starting in the NW about 30mins after sunset to NE 30 mins before dawn.

In order to photograph these clouds you'll need a camera capable of exposures of a few seconds and a tripod or other support. Focus to infinity and try exposures of 5-10 seconds with the lens wide open and ISO 400-800 then adjust around this depending on how bright the image are coming out on your screen.

If you get any images, send them in!

Good luck!