News Letter #10

Time for the first Newsletter of 2007, at the start of a major Lunar week (see What's Up! on the website). I hope that if the current good forecast is played out we will see many of you for the total Lunar eclipse on Saturday night (3rd March), mid-totality for the blood-red Moon around 11 to 11.30pm.

The winter has seen little of fondly remembered cold crisp nights of past years, with more cloud and rain than I can remember here and when it was cold then the fog settled in. The meteor showers all fell foul of this weather. However, one superb evening at the start of the month did give a chance, due to excellent seeing, of using the 10 inch at high magnification and Saturn, the Eskimo nebula and M42 (Orion nebula) were all at their best.

The greatest highlight of the New Year was comet McNaught, perhaps the greatest comet for a century... how sad that it was such a surprise, no media coverage and indeed so poorly placed for viewing from here in that it was only visible for a 30 minute slot over a couple of days. From 60 images hastily taken with a hand held digital camera in the twilight on 10th January, one is decent enough (see Blackett images on the website)

The Shell House visits are nearly complete and again 4 out of the 13 Houses so far did get to see through the 10 inch.

Summer School courses are already well booked with the new Archaeoastronomy morning course proving popular.

The second Blackett science lecture in December given jointly by Profesor Brian Foster from Oxford and Jack Liebeck on violin went very well and was well attended.

The next main (non-weather dependent) event is the 2007 NASA Sun-Earth Day lecture titled 'Living in the Atmosphere of the Sun' to be given by myself as usual. The lecture is at 6.00pm on Sunday 18th March in the Ellis Theatre. There are no reserved seats and it is open to the Public (and free!).

The next Friends evening at the Dome follows shortly after this on Wednesday 21st with a 'Tour of the Spring constellations' from 7pm.

The College La Palma trip this year consists of 3 girls in their GCSE year from the College and 4 members of Staff (one from St Mary's Calne) and we will for the first time have access to the 4.2m William Herschel telescope as well as again the 2.5m Isaac Newton

The Observatory website is currently going through an overhaul and a necessary makeover after 3 years, though I doubt we will re-launch it till the Summer. There continue to be delays to instigating the back up material for the observational list on the website, again apologies.

Following a suggestion by a local Friend, I intend to hold another non-weather dependent event in April. A Question and Answer session (on this occasion to be hosted by myself and to be held in my Physics Lab, or at the Dome depending on numbers). The proposed date is Thursday 26th April at 8pm. The broad topic will be stellar and galactic evolution, however other topics may be covered. Complex questions may be submitted in advance. If this is successful we may repeat this type of event with invited research Astrophysicists to cover specialised areas.

Please let me know by email if you would like to attend, places will be limited (first come first served).

The Summer School lecture on Anthropic Cosmology will be given by Dr Roberto Trotta (Oxford, Astrophysics department) on Thursday 2nd August. Exact timing to follow.

All comments most welcome and as ever do ring 07792311371 if you wish to check my availability. Any queries or suggestions please email me at ceb@marlboroughcollege.org.