Welcome to Astronomy in Herefordshire

Latest News:

News and items of interest to Herefordshire Astronomical Society members

• Next Activity - Observing Session - CANCELLED  TBD January2025

We have our next observing session towards the end of January. We will meet at our Lugg Meadows site - more information about our site and location here.

As always, look out for emails from Mark and Chris giving details and 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.

Latest update!

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

• Next Talk - Virtual Meeting - Thursday 6th February 2025

We are delighted to welcome Dr Peter Allan to HAS to give us his talk on The James Webb Telescope.

Peter first got interested in astronomy at the age of ten. He built his own telescope using two lens and a cardboard tube. With hindsight, this was the perfect first telescope for him - it was good enough to see things that were not visible with the naked eye, and bad enough to know that he wanted something better!

He obtained a B.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Manchester University. He spent the next four years doing research at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. In subsequent years he used telescopes in Hawaii, La Palma (Canary Islands), South Africa, and a little closer to home, the MERLIN radio telescope array that is run from Jodrell Bank.

In 1990, he moved to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, and he's been there ever since. The space science department there (RAL Space) does a lot more than just astronomy and he took the opportunity to get involved in Earth Observation, data processing systems, and international standards for Space Data Systems.

Peter joins us to talk about The James Webb Telescope - the largest telescope ever launched into space. The results from this telescope are already spectacular. His talk covers what we have learned so far, and what else we hope to discover.

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.

• 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. 

Observing Session:

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 Museaums 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 recorded meeting was a talk given by Owen Brazell. Owen allowed us to record the talk and you'll find it here:

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:

Here are the first images taken in 2025 from a HAS member! Francis took these two fabulous images on New Year's Day evening. Francis used his dual imaging rig with Askar 120 refractors and field flatteners to give an 840mm focal length. He says he took 2x 300 second exposures for Thor's Helmet and 50x 300 second exposures for the Helping Hands dark nebula:

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 hope to hold Star Parties again this session - Covid-19 allowing. Maybe we'll be able to run one at the Madley Environmental Study Centre (MESC) again.

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!