North Down Museum – Stars and Mars, Moon and Jupiter!
The 40th Annual General Meeting – 16th April
IAA Lecture; 2nd April : Dr Steve Myers (CERN) – “The LHC and the Discovery of the Higgs Boson”
The IAA is delighted to announce that the lecture on 2nd April will be given by Dr Steve Myers, Director of Accelerators at CERN. Dr Myers is a graduate of QUB where he studied Engineering, and went on to be Head of the section of CERN dealing with all the big particle accelerators, including the Large Hadron Collider. In other words, without him, they wouldn't have discovered the Higgs Boson!
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 Lecture – Dr Stefano Bagnulo, Armagh Observatory “Remote Sensing by Polarimetry”
Dr Stefano Bagnulo is an astronomer working at Armagh Observatory. He and his team are carrying out pioneering work that makes it easier to detect signs of life on other planets by filtering out the overwhelming light form the parent star. In this lecture Dr Bagnulo will explain how it's done and what it means for the future of exoplanet expoloration.
IAA Lecture – 5th March, Dave Grennan- “Making Your Own Telescope”
Aurora Borealis 27th February – Pictures
Sunspot AR1944 caused something of a stir in early January as it unleashed the most promising Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) of the current season toward Earth just in time for our Stargazing Live evening! Sadly, it missed and we didn't get the Northern lights that evening. The sunspot lived on however and reappeared as AR1967 and incredibly returned again as AR1990. Just as it appeared around the limb it let go with an X4.2 flare – huge but not Earth directed, we were only expecting a glancing blow. But the Earth's magnetic field was very favourable, and we got a good display – even the weather was good!
Pictures of the event are available in our gallery here……
IAA Lecture, 19th February, Dr Ken Smith QUB, – “Sifting the Sky with Pan-STARRS 1; Crunching the Data from the World’s Largest Operational Digital Camera”
Chelyabinsk Meteorite Day – Ulster Museum
To celebrate the first anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteorite fall in Russia, the Ulster Museum are holding a Meteorite Day from 13:00 to 16:30 on Saturday 15th February – details here….
Members of the IAA will on hand to answer any telescope queries and there may be Solar Observing if the sky is clear!
QUB/IAA Michael West Lecture – Prof Gerry Gilmore – “GAIA mission and the origin of the Milky Way”
Prof. Gerry Gilmore will give the Michael West Spring 2014 lecture on "GAIA mission and the origin of the Milky Way".
Please note the following:-
This lecture will take place in the Larmor Theatre accessed by the West side of the Physics Dept towards the Whitla Hall
Also, this meeting commences at 7pm, not our normal 7:30pm!
If you are an IAA member you need only say so on the door, however if you are not a member you need to register here…