Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control it was not possible to get the IFAS Astronomy Calendar printed in time for distribution this year, so rather than waste the effort already put in, the IFAS Committee have decided to distribute the calendar for download free of charge.

This is an excellent piece of work with time-critical astronomical information written from an Irish perspective and many thanks are due to John Flannery for the many hours he has spent pulling this together.

Note that for copyright and size reasons this free edition does not include the images that were to be part of the printed version.

The Calendar can be downloaded from this link….

Following on from the successful Soyuz mission delivering Tim Peake to the Interbational Space Station, you'll be able to see Tim passing over Northern Ireland once or twice an evening until Christmas Eve.

The station appears as a bright object, almost as bright as Venus rising in the South-West and moving slowly across the sky – at 17,500mph! It takes about five minutes to cross the sky completely. The graphic above shows the times for Belfast – for those in the West of the province it will be just a few seconds earlier – at 5 miles per second it doesn't make much difference!

Photographers may want to put a camera on a tripod with a wide angle lens and time exposure of 15-30 seconds where the path of the station will show up as a line on the frame.

See the latest updates on the link below.

http://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=25544&lat=54.583&lng=-5.933&loc=Belfast&alt=5&tz=GMT

Tony is a Past President of the Association from the 1977/78 season and we believe he is the youngest person ever to hold the post being in his early 20s at the time, though his successor, Brian Beesley runs him close on that record!

We are delighted to welcome back Tony as a speaker; he has given us some fascinating lectures over the years, with intriguing titles, and this one is no exception. To find out what it's all about you'll have to come along!

This is the story of that quest, from the ancient Egyptians, who saw in the skies the workings of their gods, to the Greeks who sought for a naturalistic explanation of what was happening, webcam model tips through the middle ages when brilliant thinkers fought against the restrictions of their culture and of their own beliefs and assumptions to struggle towards and ever more accurate understanding. It is a story of heroes and cowards, KazinoEkstra.com humility and arrogance, imagination and tunnel vision. Along the way we will encounter a host of fascinating characters, some larger than life, some odd and reclusive, some downright potty, including such famous names as Copernicus, Newton, Galileo and Aristotle. Check ibetnetwork.com.

In a a change to the programme, the lecture will be given by Terry Moseley BEM, current PR Officer and Meetings Organiser of the IAA, not to mention Past President for a total of 10 years in four stints over a period of 35 years! 

Terry's Lecture, entitled "Our Sun: Friend or Foe?" will tell us plenty about our nearest star……