Thursday January 2nd 2025 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Tony Roberts (Chair Croydon AS)

Astronomical Oddities

A look at the weird, wonderful and just plain wrong in the history of astronomy. We see new discoveries on our news feeds nearly weekly, but are they right? We don't know, yet, and accept that the science says they are right based on our current knowledge. But there are examples from history where the science of the day explained the facts, but we now know that the science was wrong. Tonight we will look at some examples, all done in good faith except one which deliberately set out to deceive.

Thursday 6th February 2025 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Prof Chris Lintott

25th Year Celebration Meeting

ESAS Is 25 Years Young, we are hoping to have a few surprises during the meeting. But our main speaker is our patron, Prof Chris Lintott, giving one of his excellent talks. We also have a Space Art Exhibition by David Hardy, David has been a prolific Space Artist since the 50's! Patricia Tomkins From the Royal Astronomical Society will be addressing us in a short talk about the work they do! @365Astronomy, Zoltan and John will bring some equipment down if you have any specific wants let me (Andy Lawes Chair of ESAS) know and it may be possible to get a one off discount! Andy will give the Sky Diary this month as Martin is away! We will close the meeting with a Grand prize draw of a small telescope, a Meteor, a pair of Binoculars, Astronomy Books and More

Thursday 7th November 2024 at 8pm, Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club. Doors open at 7:30pm

Speaker: Unfortunately Prof Chris Lintott has had to cancel his talk.

As this will now be a normal meeting, we will be having a telescope clinic, so bring along your ‘scopes or come armed with questions about how to set up.

Thursday 3rd October 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Dr David Mannion

Title: TBA

Dr David Mannion has three degrees in Astronomy and has taught in Schools and Colleges for 30 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. He co-authored a book on Galileo called: “Galileo and 400 Years of telescopic Astronomy” published by Springer in 2010.

Thursday 5th September 2024 at 8pm, Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Dr Lilian Hobbs

Astrophotography

This will be the ESAS 25th Anniversary meeting

Saturday 17th August 2024 at Ashburnham Cricket Pavilion

ESAS Annual Picnic and Perseids meteor shower

Thursday 4th July 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Nick Sayers

Art inspired by astronomy, physics and maths

Brighton artist Nick Sayers will talk about his science-inspired interactive art projects, including Cycle The Solar System, Bicycle Spirograph drawing machines and sun-capturing pinhole cameras. He will discuss how - through these works - he has creatively explored astronomy, physics and mathematics, making these abstract subjects more accessible to a wider audience.

Thursday 2nd May at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: John Mallett FRAS

Astronomy Imaging, how do they get those pretty images?

Techniques used to get deep sky images using telescopes. Some useful tips to getting those elusive pictures!

Thursday 6th June at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Greg Smye-Rumsby

Mapping Worlds

One of Greg's new talks - Mapping worlds. Greg is one of our speakers most asked to return!

Thursday 4th April at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Prof David Rees

In Search of the Aurora

Prof. Rees will be talking about aurora—and with the Sun being at maximum activity we should be in for some wonderful treats!

Biography

Prof. Rees has been involved in the development of Lidar Systems and their exploitation for atmospheric science since 1970. After running the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory at University College London, UK, for more than 30 years, through his companies, he has subsequently been involved in providing the 24 / 7 capability for the ALOMAR Observatory in N. Norway, as well as the development of the Direct Detection Technique currently exploited by Aeolus. He has participated in a number of ESA design and development studies for Aeolus and ATLID / EarthCARE, among other Projects. He has also worked on several large Astronomical Telescopes. A current hot R&D topic is Imaging Lidar, exploiting very high-performance imaging photon detectors with 100 psec time tagging.

Thursday 4th February 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Rosemary Selmes

My time at Herstmonceux Observatory and photographing with the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT)

Rosemary Selmes a Fellow of The RAS and founder Member of ESAS, will entertain us with enthusiasm and humour as she shares her reminiscences of life at Herstmonceux as an Astronomer in the late-60's & early 70's

Thursday 4th January 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Peter Goodhew FRAS

Searching The Cosmos For Planetary Nebulae

Peter will describe how he and his fellow team members go about discovering planetary nebula. He will explain some of the challenges in conducting such research, and how new discoveries become recognised and confirmed by the professional community. He will present many of the most beautiful and remarkable recent discoveries made by the team - including several that turned out to be quite unexpected!

Biography: Peter is part of an international team of amateurs collaborating in searching the cosmos for planetary nebula. His role in the team is to take deep images of potential discoveries. He does this using a remotely-operated dual rig located at a dark site in Spain. His images are frequently published in Astronomy Now magazine and many have received awards. He is a member of the British Astronomical Association, and has been elected as a Fellow of The Royal Astronomical Society.

Thursday 7th March 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Dr David Mannion

History of Astronomy (A New Perspective)

Dr David Mannion—an old friend of ESAS—will be giving us some new views on the History of Astronomy.

Biography

Dr David Mannion has three degrees in Astronomy and has taught in Schools and Colleges for 30 years in the UK, Austria and Turkey. He has also been a tutor for the Open University in both Physics and Astronomy. He became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1984 and was a member of its Education Committee 2005 - 2010.

David has run numerous Astronomy Clubs and was a founder member and a Vice President of the Association for Astronomy Education. He co-authored a book on Galileo—Galileo and 400 Years of telescopic Astronomy, published by Springer in 2010.

He has numerous Astronomy videos on his YouTube channel, for instance The Search for Dark Matter and Dark Energy, Canterbury Festival

As a promoter of astronomy, he has given Astronomy talks to Royal Astronomical Society, Society of Popular Astronomy and dozens of astronomical societies in South East England. He has also lectured on Cruise Ships and is an RAS (Royal Astronomical Society) speaker for CUNARD and will next year be lecturing on Queen Victoria V409 – this will be his 20^th Cruise ship voyage giving Astronomy and Space Talks. He has produced 14 varied and interesting talks ranging from the Search for Extra-terrestrial Life in our Galaxy, the Future of Space Travel and the Search for Dark Matter and Dark energy which makes up 95% of the Universe but to date is unknown! He combines a great knowledge of astronomy with humour and excellent communication skills.