Spectroscopy is a technique used to measure the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation and includes the visible light which radiates from stars and hot celestial objects.

This talk explains the terms used in astro-spectroscopy and examines how, using blue spruce maids technology now available to the amateur astronomer, scientific measurements of a star’s type, temperature and chemical composition can be made.

The equipment and computer software required to carry out spectroscopy on stars is examined and an example of the process of turning a processed spectrum image into useful calibrated scientific data is explained.

Dr David Lisk is a keen amateur astronomer and a retired Head of Informatics and Technology at a Higher Education college, where he lectured in Applied Science. 

Doors open about 7.15pm. There is free parking available on the campus in the evenings. Admission Free, including light refreshments. We are located in the Bell Theatre, Department of Mathematics and Physics, QUB – details here……

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is due for launch in October of next year on an Ariane V rocket. With much more light gathering power than Hubble, and the ability to operate well into the infrared, it will explore such topics as the re-ionization of the Universe, the formation of galaxies at very high redshifts, the birth of stars and planets, and exoplanet atmospheres.

After giving an overview of JWST's main instruments, and the type of science they are capable of, Prof Ray will concentrate in particular on what they can tell us about the first million years in the lifetime of a star like our Sun.  

Prof Tom Ray is a Professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies

Our speaker at this meeting is Dr Sophie Murray, currently a Research Fellow at TCD where she works on Space Weather projects within the Astrophysics Research Group. She has previously worked with the Met Office on Solar Physics and Thermospheric Modelling projects.

Dr Murray has over ten years experience as a research scientist, analysing and visualising large volumes of satellite data, and developing and verifying modelling techniques. Her current research interests range from solar flares and active regions to the impact of space weather on the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Space weather describes the changing environmental conditions in near-Earth space. Severe space weather events in the form of solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and solar energetic particle events, have the potential to severely affect a range of vital technologies. It is thus crucial to improve our scientific understanding of solar storms and the Sun-Earth connection in order to provide accurate forecasts of severe events.

The Perseid Meteor shower is caused by the Earth passing through the debris trail of Comet 109P Swift-Tuttle which orbits the Sun with a 130 year period. The meteors hit the Earth's atmosphere comparitively fast, aprroximately 35 miles/sec or 120,000 mph and burn up at a height of around 50 miles. 

Our traditional Perseid barbeque and Observing will be held at our observing site at Delamont Country Park.

We have chosen Saturday 12th August as offering the best weather prospects, though the Moonrise at 11:02pm will compromse viewing somewaht, the brighter meteors should still be visible.

Bring your own Barbeque, food and drink, regrettably Terry and his famous Barbie are not available this year.

Meet at 8:00pm for the Barbeque with observing from 10:30pm onwards.

‘Heavens Above’ is an Astrophotography exhibition presented by The Irish Astronomical Association. All are welcome to the launch on Mon 3rd July 1.30-3.30pm in the Carnegie Library – Hamilton Road, Bangor. The exhibition is open until 29th July.

This is a free family event with Tea & Coffee, an incredible Meteorite display, solar viewing with telescopes, weather permitting, talks by Prof Stephen Smartt from QUB, Dr Mike Simms from the Ulster Museum and Paul Evans from the IAA.

All 40 images on display have been taken by our members.

The exhibition runs until 29th July 2017 and has previously been staged at a number of high profile venues with huge popular acclaim, including the Linenhall Library, Belfast, the Lisburn Island Arts Centre, the Clotworthy House gallery, Antrim and the St Patrick Centre, Downpatrick. The meteorites displayed are an exciting new addition to the exhibition originating from asteroids, the Moon and even Mars before they make a fiery landing on our own planet Earth. These meteorites are both rare and valuable and this is your chance to get up-close with these remnants from the solar system’s other worldly bodies.

This piece concerning the Meteorites on display was written by Dr Mike Simms of the Ulster Museum….

 From Heavens Above to Hell on Earth

 

The meteorite that exploded high above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 weighed about 10,000 tons and was just 17 metres across. But travelling at 40,000 mph it exploded with the force of more than 20 Hiroshima bombs! So imagine the effects of a meteorite 3 or 4 kilometres across hitting the ground at this speed. It would literally create a Hell on Earth. It formed a crater perhaps 40km across and 5 km deep. Temperatures reached as much as 10,000oC, the meteorite and thousands of cubic kilometres of the rock it hit would melt or even vapourise. Blobs of molten rock were flung out across the landscape by the impact. They form a distinctive layer, an ‘impact deposit’, that spreads for hundreds, or even thousands, of kilometres in all directions from the crater.

 

On Earth these impact craters and impact deposits are very rare. Over countless millions of years most are buried or eroded away. In the UK only two impact deposits, and one deeply buried crater, have ever been found. For the first time ever pieces of both of these unique impact deposits, and some pieces of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, are on display together as part of the Heavens Above exhibition which runs from 3rd to 29th July at Bangor Carnegie Library. They are on loan from National Museums Northern Ireland.

 

In the far north-west of Scotland is an impact deposit up to 12 metres thick, with green chunks of impact-melted rock mixed with red sand. It was deposited almost 1200 million years ago, flung out from a 40 km diameter crater that now lies deeply buried beneath northern Scotland. The other impact deposit, found near Bristol, forms a layer just a few cm thick. It is made of tiny ‘beads’ of impact-melted rock deposited just 214 million years ago. Amazingly, geologists have shown that the source of this deposit is actually in eastern Canada, at the 100 km diameter Manicouagan Crater!

 

Surrounded by breathtaking pictures of the night sky in the peaceful setting of the library, these unique rock samples were witness to catastrophic events when Heaven and Earth collided in the distant past.