Thornbury

Astronomy

The Covid-19 outbreak means that the astronomy group are not be able to meet face to face.

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During the Covid-19 difficulties the group is holding its meetings using the Zoom video conferencing tool. The meetings are held on the first Monday of each month, starting at 10.30am, and last between an hour and an hour and a half. The bulk of each meeting is usually made up of two talks on different astronomical topics. The speakers are always members of the group: our usual practice. Sometimes observations are reported by group members, observing being largely unaffected by the current difficulties.

The thumbnails below are of images taken at our Zoom meetings. (click on a thumbnail to see a larger image)

The membership varies widely in background and we are mainly a talks and discussions group, but with a small number of dedicated, telescope owning observers. We cover astronomy in the widest sense: observations, cosmology, space missions, history and so on. We do not explore the subject systematically - almost every meeting is a stand-alone meeting. We are particularly keen on covering the latest findings in Astronomy as soon as possible after they are announced.

A few days before each meeting a poster is placed on this website advertising the meeting’s main talk. The "Past Meetings" page contains a collection of these posters and anyone interested in joining us can examine these to get some idea of what we cover. The group welcomes new members.

Contact the Group Leader, Peter Jackson, on 418050 or by email to Astronomy.

If you have any comments about the web site, please sent an email to Webmaster.

Notice Board

• Two members of the group have selections of camera adapters which are surplus to their requirements. Take a look at the "For Sale" page (see the link on the right of this page).

• A small "Jessop’s refractor and tripod" has been offered for sale. Details are on the "For Sale" page (see the link on the right of this page).

• The next meteor shower will be the Lyrids in April. The Lyrids will peak on April 22nd/23rd 2021. The radiant, in Lyra, will be in the east during the early morning of April 23rd. The moon will be approaching its first quarter in the north-west. The Lyrids are one of the oldest recorded meteor showers. According to some historical Chinese texts, the shower was seen over 2,500 years ago. The fireballs in the meteor shower are created by debris from comet Thatcher, which takes about 415 years to orbit around the Sun. The comet is expected to be visible from Earth again in 2276.