2nd January 2014 - Rosemary Selmes

Our first speaker for 2014 is Rose-mary Selmes, a founder member and a past astronomer at Herst-monceux, Rosemary has spent probably thousands of hours on her back in the Domes at Herst-monceux manually correcting the guiding of the telescopes. One of these telescopes was the Isaac Newton Telescope now located at La Palma, where she and a hand-ful of other members visited the INT and were given access to it.
Rosemary's talk is entitled 'INT past and present'

6th February 2014 - Stuart Constable

April 3rd 2014 - Damian Peach – Astrophotography

May 1st 2014 - Peter Gill from Eastbourne - The Moon

June 5th 2014 - Paul Money (Astronomer, Author, presenter)

July 3rd 2014 - Members Evening Andy Lawes, Richie Jarvis, Peter Bolwell & Zoltan Trenovszki 

2nd October 2014 - Stephen Tonkin - Binocular Astronomy

Stephen is an author for popular Astronomy Magazines and has written several books one entitled Binocular Astronomy which is the title of Steve’s talk. Stephen's talk is a hands on experience and he will be bringing lots of equipment. 
Ref: http://binocularsky.com/

6th November 2014 - Bob Mizon from Campaign for Dark Skys (CfDS)

4th December 2014 - Short Talks by Members

8th January 2015 - Alistair Fairley - Moon Missions a ITV reporters view

Alastair Fairley is a writer, heritage expert and, since 2004, Director of the Fairley Archive of Space Exploration (FASE) .

Currently a senior member of the South East Regional Committee of the Heritage Lottery Fund, his responsibilities include overseeing the awards of over £22m annual grant programme, drawing on his experience of founding, managing and securing funds for a raft of large and small organisations in the arts, heritage and community development sectors.

In 2004 he established the Fairley Archive of Space Exploration, after a bequest of rare photography and space artefacts from his late father, Peter Fairley, the former Science Editor of Independent Television News. The archive contains several thousand rare NASA and Soviet photographs, signed photography and other items from the golden era of space exploration, stretching from the earliest forays into space through to the development of the space shuttle and beyond.

5th February 2015 - Francisco Diego - Senior Research Fellow at UCL

Cosmic Fire On Earch : The amazing energy of star death 

Going back in time to explore those initial conditions, when the primordial energy was confined in a handful of fundamental particles, the building blocks of the Universe to be brought together at different stages by the four known basic forces.

Travelling deep inside stars to witness some of those forces at work, assembling the nuclei of light atoms along millions of years; a process highly intensified during the brief and cataclysmic death of massive stars.

A talk that will promote debate about the discoveries of science and its applications for good and for bad.

ref: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/themindoftheuniverse/lectures/cosmic-fire

The second half we will have a brief Sky Diary, and a short talk by ESAS Member Mark Jarvis a keen Astrophotographer, he will be showing us how he manages to get his wonderful pictures using his Canon DSLR & Astrotrac.

Thursday 5th March - Jane A. Green - BASKETBALLS AND BEYOND - Wonders of the Cosmos.  
Jane is a Professional Speaker, Author and Broadcaster with appearances on BBC Radio Four, BBC Two and BBC Radio Sussex. She has co-presented with Sir Patrick Moore and is author of the best-selling Haynes Astronomy Manual – listed No 6 on Amazon’s ‘List of Collectible Astronomy Books for 2011′ – and Celestial Extra Texture, a masterpiece combining earth-bound nature and celestial wonder.  

She appears regularly on 105 Uckfield FM as their resident astronomer. Janes' website is www.janegreenastronomy.co.uk

Jane’s style is enthusiastic, passionate and above all, accessible.  Her innate ability to explain the most enormous concept in a straightforward and digestible way has made her beloved of listeners and readers alike.

Thursday 2nd April 2015 - Darren Baskill Astronomy Outreach Director Sussex University.

Darren is the outreach officer for the University of Sussex's department of Physics & Astronomy, where he encourages school and college students to consider doing a degree in physics. Before that, he taught astronomy at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, predominantly in the planetarium, and before that he did his PhD in X-ray astronomy, after which he spent 4 years calibrating the XMM-Newton Space Telescope, ensuring the the data sent back to Earth was of the highest quality.

With his talk entitled Extreme Astronomy: Observing the Hawaiian Skies

Abstract: "The best places to observe the night sky also have some of the most extreme conditions on the planet. British astronomers have access to telescopes at an altitude of 4,200m on the summit of Mauna Kea, on the Big Island of Hawai'i. This talk is a personal perspective on making astronomical observations in harsh conditions using the UK infra-red telescope and JCMT telescopes atop Mauna Kea."

7th May 2015 - David Mannion - ET are you out there?

We have always wondered whether there is life on other planets and if there is life can we expect to communicate one day with intelligent life? Have aliens been to our Earth? What form of communication might work with extra-terrestrials?

Talk references:

• http://www.exoplanets.eu/
• ATA : Allen Telescope Array
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
• Allan_Hills_84001
• Planet Detection Methods

David Mannion has three degrees in Astronomy and has taught in Schools and Colleges for 28 years in the UK, Austria and Turkey. He has also been a tutor for the Open University in both Physics and Astronomy.

Dr. Mannion became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1984 and was a member of its Education Committee 2005 - 2010.

He has run numerous Astronomy Clubs and was a founder member and a Vice President of the Association for Astronomy Education.

His other burning interest is weightlifting having once been a British Student Weightlifting and Powerlifting Champion in 1984. He is currently a National Referee for British Weightlifting and became a Masters Champion in the 94 kg class in 2007, 2010 and again in 2012.

He wishes to keep lifting weights and watching the stars for as long as possible. He has two videos on Galileo and Newton on YouTube (See The Heavens Above episode 1 and 2). His web site is http://WorldofAstronomy.org.uk/.

4th June 2015 - Professor Chris Lintott (Co-presenter on BBC Sky at Night)

The society is proud to have had along the long standing presenter of the BBC's Sky at Night, Professor Chris Lintott to our meeting. Chris, with Sir Patrick Moore, has been a key player in getting as many people as possible involved in Astronomy, with his involvement in Zooniverse and the public lectures he undertakes.

Chris invited people to explore the Universe from the comfort of their sofa with the help of their own computer. He shared his expert knowledge on planet exploration and showed how everyone can become a citizen scientist alone with the [currently] 800,000 volunteers armed with nothing more than a web browser who have helped astronomers discover planets, explore distant galaxies and map the Milky Way.

In the second half of the meeting;

• Not only did Chris give us a fascinating lecture but this month he officially became our Patron of ESAS in a small ceremony after his talk.
   
• Paul Foster talked to a member of Northeast Florida Astromical Society over a live link, to officially mark the twinning of ESAS & NEFAS.
   
• Andy also give us the sky diary.

2nd July 2015 - Paul Money (FRAS) - 'Our Universe in Pictures 3'

An astronomer based in Lincolnshire, England, Paul is well known for his animated talks, he is the reviews editor of the BBC Sky at Night magazine. Paul broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and was awarded the 'Eric Zucker' award for 2002/2003 for contributions to Astronomy by the Federation of Astronomical Societies. 

ESAS members can view the Q&A video on our society videos of Pauls' previous talk on "Images of The Universe" by logging on to the web site members section.

2nd August 2015
Open Day with Planetarium talks, Telescopes & Star troopers