Welcome to Astronomy in Herefordshire

Latest News:

News and items of interest to Herefordshire Astronomical Society members

• Next Talk - Kindle Centre - Thursday 1st May 2025

We are delighted to announce HAS member Dr Steve Foulkes will give us his talk "Cataclysmic Variables". This talk will be held at the Kindle Centre in Hereford.

Those with very long memories may recall that this is the second time that Steve has given a talk to HAS. He gave a talk on searching for supernovae in our very first year of existence 2008 - so it's about time we invited him to give us another!

As always, look out for emails from Chris with details of what HAS is doing next. If you are not on our emailing list, please contact Chris for the latest news - contact details here.

• Partial Solar Eclipse - Observing Session - Saturday 29th March 

We were lucky with the weather for the Partial Solar Eclipse on Saturday 29th March. The sky was reasonably clear for first contact at 10:04 and the clouds mostly kept away until after maximum eclipse just before 11:00.

There was a great collection of observing equipment - projecting scopes, H Alpha scope, Herschel wedges, mylar viewing glasses and, of course, the traditional colander.

Everyone was able to see the partially covered sun, the collection of sun spots spread across the sun's surface and some prominences on the edge of the solar disk. 

Many thanks to James and Wyevale Nurseries for allowing us to use their private car park to safely set up our equipment, park cars and vans and enjoy the selection of cakes and nibbles that Keith and David brought along.

Here's a taster of what we experienced on the day:

• Next Visit - Bletchley Park and Henley Boat Museum's Space Vault Exhibition

At our AGM, Keith outlined our plans for trips and visits this year.

Top of the list is a proposed trip to  Bletchley Park. Although not directly associated with astronomy, the place it holds in British history and the development of technology tickled the interest of HAS members. 

We are also hoping to include a visit to Henley Boat Museum to see their Space Vault Exhibition. This exhibition incorporates rare and historic objects brought back to Earth from the lunar surface, low-Earth orbit and outer space, from NASA’s Apollo missions and the Soviet space era to the US and Russian space shuttle programs, International Space Station and SpaceX. 

There's also The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in Block H at Bletchley Park - home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers. 

There's so much to see that we plan a two day visit and will find somewhere to stay overnight nearby. 

If you haven't already signed up for this trip, please contact Keith (here) to find out more.

Observing Session:

That's it for our 2024/2025 season - the clocks have gone back and the evenings are lighter. Our next observing session will be the first one of the 2025/2026 season in October.

As always, look out for emails from Chris giving proposed date and details and look out for any last minute alterations. We will endeavour to stick to these dates unless weather means 'sliding' it, in which case it will likely be a few days earlier or later and members will of course be advised. Each date is centred on the first Thursday after Third Quarter.

If you are not on our emailing list, please contact Chris for the latest news - contact details here.

Remember that there are some great online observing guides - a good one is run by Telescope House. Look out for the monthly night sky emails from Chris.

Observing Highlights 

Observing highlights for this month:

• Royal Museums Greenwich - Night Sky Highlights

• BBC Sky at Night Magazine

Links for weather and observing forecasts:

• Met Office Satellite image. UK Visible Light

• Clear Outside (FLO)

• Glendale Aurora Alerts UK 

Meetings:

With meetings now allowed indoors, we are delighted to be able to have a mix of virtual Zoom talks and talks back at the Kindle Centre. Our next meeting will be:

Many of our speakers at the Virtual Talks have allowed us to record and share their talks for society members to view if they missed the meeting. We've started a HAS YouTube channel here where you can visit or subscribe to and watch these talks.

To watch recordings of previous talks, they are on the "Recordings" page  here.

Our last meeting was given by Dr Steve Barrett at the Kindle Centre - so we weren't able to record it as a Zoom meeting. However, Steve has cunningly managed to record the live presentation using his lap top:

FAS News

Look out for emails from Keith with the regular FAS Newsletter and news and information about other events and talks that you may be interested in attending at FAS and other Astronomical Societies

Member's Photos 

Taken any astronomy photos over the last few months? Share them here with HAS members! 

Take a look at what HAS members have managed to do over the years on our Images page (here). 

HAS members have risen to the challenge of imaging all 110 Messier objects! Check out how we're doing on our Messier Marathon page (here).

Below are some recent images taken by HAS members:

Visit:

Once or twice a year, members like to jump in cars or climb in a mini-bus and make their way to go and see something interesting outside of Herefordshire (passports not required - so far). Previous trips have been to the Spaceguard Centre, the International Astronomy Show, the National Space Centre, Jodrell Bank, the Norman Lockyer Observatory outside Sidmouth, the Herschel Museum in Bath and the Hanwell Community Observatory just outside Banbury.

At our September meeting, Keith described the potential sites we could visit and took a poll of those present. Based on your feedback we've now had a fab trip to visit to the Spaceguard Centre in Knighton and Keith is now looking to organise a longer visit to Jodrell Bank in 2024 with an overnight stay to make the travel easier.

Look out for emails from Keith explaining more about the proposed visits and asking members to register for the trips.

Our next proposed trip is to  Bletchley Park. Although not directly associated with astronomy, the place it holds in British history and the development of technology tickled the interest of HAS members. We are also hoping to include a visit to Henley Boat Museum to see their Space Vault Exhibition. This exhibition incorporates rare and historic objects brought back to Earth from the lunar surface, low-Earth orbit and outer space, from NASA’s Apollo missions and the Soviet space era to the US and Russian space shuttle programs, International Space Station and SpaceX. There's also The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) in Block H at Bletchley Park - home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers. There's so much to see that we plan a two day visit and will find somewhere to stay overnight nearby. 

Members pay for shared transport and any entrance fees as appropriate..

Star Party:

We've held Star Parties in the past, most recently at the Madley Environmental Study Centre (MESC). Let us know if his is something you'd be interested in or would be happy to help with.

MESC is right next door to the Madley Satellite Earth Station - a well known Herefordshire landmark. There are some location maps and directions to the MESC web site here.

Members Discussion Group

We've set up an online community for HAS members where you can raise questions, share your experience and suggest topics for talks or visits. We've created a discussion group on the Groups.io platform. This is a "fremium" based platform and promotes itself as "We don't run advertising and your data is never submitted to any ad tracking networks.". There are a lot of other astronomy and expert groups using this platform - it looks like a safe place to be online.

We've set the permissions for the group to be listed publicly but content is private - only HAS members can see what you post. We are moderating new members joining the group to manage spam bots and spurious content. This means new member requests have to be approved by an Admin before being admitted to the group. 

Once admitted you can follow discussions and post entries. It's an email based platform by default - you'll receive new posts by email from other members. However, if you don't want individual emails you can go online and change your "Subscription" to turn off emails and receive digests etc.

Have fun!