The 426th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 4th May 2007 at 8pm
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Philip Masding,
Colin Eaves, Ged Birbeck, Geoff Walton,
Graham Sinagola, John Tipping, Roger Livermore,
Colin Bowler, Peter Baugh, Nick Odham,
Tony Bradshaw, Tony Aremia, Chris Suddick,
Mark Crossley.
(total 16)
The chairman welcomed every body to the meeting and explained that tonight would be a show & tell evening.
We started with John Tipping’s recent holiday to the USA to see a friend called Kelly who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico including photographs of the best bits.
During his holiday he travelled from Albuquerque to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon in Arizona taking in several places of to astronomical interest.
He Started with a trip to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope array close to Albuquerque which consists of twenty seven independent twenty five metre radio telescopes. They can be moved on a Y shaped rail system and at maximum have a baseline of nearly twenty three miles.
This was followed a petrified forest of fossilized wood and then they were off to Flagstaff.
Next they went to Meteor crater east of Flagstaff and John gave us some interesting facts and figures on the three quarter of a mile wide 570 foot deep crater and its history.
Then they went to the Lowell observatory near Flagstaff which is named after Its founder Percival Lowell. One of the telescopes was used by Lowell to observe Mars and make his drawings of canals that we now know were imaginary. It is also from here that Pluto was discovered. Percival Lowell is buried next to the observatory. This was followed by a breathtaking trip to the Grand Canyon.
During his trip he also saw the Rattlesnake Observatory and Arizona Star Village and told us that there are a lot of amateur and small remotely controlled observatories in the area. He even had some time in the evenings for a quick peek at the sky and was impressed by the view. Another highlight were the hummingbirds.
We thanked John for his talk and had a break.
When we restarted we were told of Phil’s visit to The Sky At Night party in Selsey, (and meeting a Cheeky Girl).
Colin gave us a quick rundown on his progress with his new equipment from various sites including the Whirlpool galaxy (M51) from Clough House and Bewdley south of Birmingham and the lunar eclipse from Jodrell Bank. He also explained the difficulties he was sometimes having getting the correct focus on deep sky objects with a web cam.
Paul then showed us some web cam images of Saturn
The secretary then went through the societies post.
Finally we were reminded of the upcoming star party at Jodrell Bank weather permitting.
The meeting was then brought to a close.
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Philip Masding,
Colin Eaves, Ged Birbeck, Geoff Walton,
Graham Sinagola, John Tipping, Roger Livermore,
Colin Bowler, Peter Baugh, Nick Odham,
Tony Bradshaw, Tony Aremia, Chris Suddick,
Mark Crossley.
(total 16)
The chairman welcomed every body to the meeting and explained that tonight would be a show & tell evening.
We started with John Tipping’s recent holiday to the USA to see a friend called Kelly who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico including photographs of the best bits.
During his holiday he travelled from Albuquerque to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon in Arizona taking in several places of to astronomical interest.
He Started with a trip to the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope array close to Albuquerque which consists of twenty seven independent twenty five metre radio telescopes. They can be moved on a Y shaped rail system and at maximum have a baseline of nearly twenty three miles.
This was followed a petrified forest of fossilized wood and then they were off to Flagstaff.
Next they went to Meteor crater east of Flagstaff and John gave us some interesting facts and figures on the three quarter of a mile wide 570 foot deep crater and its history.
Then they went to the Lowell observatory near Flagstaff which is named after Its founder Percival Lowell. One of the telescopes was used by Lowell to observe Mars and make his drawings of canals that we now know were imaginary. It is also from here that Pluto was discovered. Percival Lowell is buried next to the observatory. This was followed by a breathtaking trip to the Grand Canyon.
During his trip he also saw the Rattlesnake Observatory and Arizona Star Village and told us that there are a lot of amateur and small remotely controlled observatories in the area. He even had some time in the evenings for a quick peek at the sky and was impressed by the view. Another highlight were the hummingbirds.
We thanked John for his talk and had a break.
When we restarted we were told of Phil’s visit to The Sky At Night party in Selsey, (and meeting a Cheeky Girl).
Colin gave us a quick rundown on his progress with his new equipment from various sites including the Whirlpool galaxy (M51) from Clough House and Bewdley south of Birmingham and the lunar eclipse from Jodrell Bank. He also explained the difficulties he was sometimes having getting the correct focus on deep sky objects with a web cam.
Paul then showed us some web cam images of Saturn
The secretary then went through the societies post.
Finally we were reminded of the upcoming star party at Jodrell Bank weather permitting.
The meeting was then brought to a close.
posted by Kevin at 4:32 PM
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