Thursday 12th March 2009
Meadowbrook Primary School - Bradley Stoke
Simon Smith gave a talk on astronomy as part of National Science Week and the IYA2009.
Friday 13th March 2009
Backwell School - Backwell
Jannine Derry gave talks on Dwarf Planets, The Life Cycle of Stars, Galaxies and Dark Matter. In total there were around 120 pupils who attended the talks.
Monday 23rd March 2009
Wells Rotary Club - Wells
Richard Mansfield will gave a talk on general astronomy
Saturday 28th March 2009
Avon Wildlife Trust Earth Hour Event - Brandon Hill - Bristol
Joint event with Avon Wildlife Trust at Brandon Hill. This event was unfortunately affected by cloudy skies. BAS members who attended were Tricia Brown, Alan Court, Janine Derry, Fiona Lambert, Judith Pavey, Dave Smales
Saturday April 4th 2009
At-Bristol Planetarium - Millennium Square - Bristol
Joint Star party with the At-Bristol Planetarium and Bristol Astronomical Society.
An opportunity to really get a good look at the Bristol night sky. As part of the International Year of Astronomy the Bristol Astronomical Society want to get 1000 people looking through their telescopes and enjoying the amazing views of the heaven above. Come along and see one of the presenter led Spring night sky star shows and then join local experts in admiring stars, planets, satellites and other wonders in the real night sky.
Comments
This event was a great success, Bristol Astronomical Society members provided around 10 telescopes of various designs and sizes from a small 2.5 inch reflector to our monster 18 inch reflector. As we were setting the sky did not look very promising, lots of cloud, however as the appointed hour arrived and the visitors started arriving the sky cleared to reveal a 9 day old gibbous moon, with Saturn to the southeast of it. There were around 70 to 80 visitors and as they took turns to view the moon there were lots of 'Wows' coming from all the telescopes. I took along a pair of 10x50 binoculars and lots of the visitors were surprised at how much more could be seen with them. Once everyone had looked at the Moon through the various instruments, the telescopes were turned to Saturn. Even with the rings almost edge on there were lots more 'Wows' and 'just look at that'. We also got to look at M42 in Orion with a number of telescopes and the Pleiades, M45 with binoculars. There were plenty of observing charts for people to take away and also bookmarks. All in all this was a great event, and I hope it will not be last. Thanks to At-Bristol for staging the event and all those from the BAS, in particular, Simon Smith, Janine Derry and Tony Smith for organising it.
BAS Members who attended were Aziz Alareedh, Mike Cowles, Janine Derry, Bob Holder, Bill Knocker, Fiona Lambert, Toby Lumber, Richard Mansfield, Allan McCarthy, Richard McPhail, James Moore, Alan Osborn, Ryan Parle, Judith Pavey, Dave Smales, Tony Smith, Simon Smith, John Willis
Mike Cowles