07-Dec-11 : Luna returns (redux)
Well, Luna didn't quite return the way we thought it would, and we didn't resume the lecture programme as we intended but we're not dead yet. As fate turned out, >Luna-founder David Hughes ended up as the Vice Chairman and Web Administrator of Sunderland Astronomical Society so the ideas that we wanted to develop as part of Luna's evolution will surface in one way or another.
We're still highly active, and we still have a number of programmes running and some of them may end up under the Luna umbrella so just wait and see.
P.S. The contact facility has been disabled until the hackers decide to leave us alone and pester somebody else.
Other events are also in the planning stage so we strongly recommend that you check back here regularly so that you don't miss anything important!
15-Oct-10 : Luna returns
After a quiet summer, Luna has returned and is now preparing for the forthcoming winter observing season.
To begin with, we have two new Outreach events. The first will be held at Rainton Meadows Nature Reserve for Durham Wildlife Trust and the talk will form a gentle introduction to the world of amateur astronomy.
The second event will be a short talk (subject to be confirmed) for South Shields Astronomical Society on Thursday 2nd December 2010. Please check back here for contact and venue details.
Other events are also in the planning stage so we strongly recommend that you check back here regularly so that you don't miss anything important!
11-Jul-10 : Luna is taking a break
Luna is taking a break for a couple of months. We'll be re-launching later in the year, once the dark skies have returned.
The monthly lectures held at the Centre for Life in Newcastle have been withdrawn. Instead, we intend to concentrate on educational and public access events throughout the region.
Luna would like to thank those people who came along to the Centre for Life support us and, of course, special thanks to the Centre for Life for giving us a home for the last few months.
01-Jun-10 : Radio Newcastle, The Jonathan Miles Show
The two astro-Daves, David Hughes and Dave Newton, will be appearing on BBC Radio Newcastle's The Jonathan Miles Show at 1240 hours on Tuesday 1st June 2010 to discuss The SUmmer Sky, the subject of that night's talk at The Centre for Life.
27-Apr-10 : Outreach Programme Updates
We're delighted to announce the following additions to our summer outreach programme for 2010.
- Thursday 29th May 2010, Introdution to Astronomy, Usworth College (DN/DH)
- May 2010, Subject TBC, Northumberland Astronomical Society (DH)
- Friday 18th June 2010, Can we build a warp drive?, Kielder Astronomial Society (DH)
- August 2010, Introduction to astronomy, Northumberland Wildlife Trust (DH, TBC)
- October 2010, Famous North East Astronomers, Houghton Feast (DH)
- Saturday 14th January 2011, On First Name Terms: Galaxies with proper names,Cleveland and Darlington A.S. (DN)
We're still waiting for a few events to be confirmed but the majority are pretty much fixed in the calendar.
23-Mar-10 : Warp drives and worm holes, and the forum
The Warp drives and Wormholes talk, given as part of Newcastle Science Fest, was a tremendous success. We expected around 20, maybe 25, people to attend but the final number was easily over 70.
Astro Dave Hughes delivered an interesting and somewhat controversial view of the history of science fiction, what makes good and bad science fiction and whether or not we'll ever be able to construct the fabled warp drive for real.
Many thanks to Centre for Life for hosting the event and for putting on the whole ScienceFest event. They did the city proud.
In recent months, we've been using our Facebook group for most of our announcements. However, it seems that not everyone finds Facebook as useful as we do. Hence, we've decided to re-launch our forum, http://luna-astronomical.forumotion.com/, which we'll run this in parallel with the facebook page.
Membership of the forum is free and open to all. It's also fully moderated at all times and therefore family-friendly. All you have to do is register with a user name and a password, and you can join.
28-Feb-10 : Society update
Elin Roberts with Luna's Julie Coomber and David Newton
The society is slowly progressing with attendance rising at every meeting. That's very satisfying. We'd like to thank all of those people who have come along and shown their support whilst we get Luna off the ground. We also have to say a very loud Thank you to Elin Roberts and all of the people at The Centre for Life in Newcastle who have really worked hard to support us.
On March 16th 2010, we have a really important event - our first public lecture in association with the Newcastle Science Fest, a 10 day celebration of science at venues across NewcastleGateshead, with the principal aim of increasing the North East's enthusiasm for science and encouraging young people to consider a career in this area. There's also some overlap with the region's other big event, the AV Festival, an international biennial festival of electronic arts, featuring visual art, music and moving image. This year's theme is energy. Luna will be presenting a lecture entitled Warp drives, Wormholes and wishful thinking..., which asks the question How much science fiction is good science?
Gary Fildes with Luna's David Hughes.
On Thursday 25th February 2010, Luna founders Dave Newton, Julie Coomber and David Hughes attended the last in this year's series of Mini Astro lectures, organised by the Centre for Life as an introduction to astronomy and astrophysics. The evening began with a thought-provoking talk by given by International Year of Astronomy's organiser Steve Owens on Astronomy and Astrology and was capped off with a small cocktail party so that delegates could view the Explorers of the Universe photographic exhibition. Gary Fildes of Kielder Observatory was also in attendance.
We used the opportunity to show the new promotional video for the Warp drives, Wormholes and wishful thinking... talk on March 16th 2010. The video, produced by Luna, shows the fictional Starship Enterprise leaving space dock and asks the question 'Can we really build a Warp Drive?'. Click on the link below to view the YouTube video.
On Friday 26th February, David Hughes was invited back as a special guest on BBC Radio Newcastle's The Jonathan Miles Show, this time to talk about Sunday's Wolf Moon. The topics covered included the phases of the Moon, how the Moon influences humans and the Moon in mythology. Checkout the Press section to hear this interview.
And, finally, in April we have our first away mission - a visit to Peter Vasey's observatory at Hexham in Northumberland. Peter is one of the finest astrophotographers in the country, if not the world, and this is already proving to be an extremely popular and heavily over-subscribed event. Check the meetings page for further announcements.
04-Jan-10 : Meeting Cancelled
Due to the advanced warnings of severe weather issued by the Met Office, we've decided to postpone tomorrow's lecture entitled An Observer's Guide to UFOs.
This lecture will be rescheduled for later in the year, probably as an extra meeting in March.
We would like to apologise for any inconvenience but the weather forecast does look absolutely dreadful, especially for some of our out-of-town visitors.
Luna founders, Dave Newton and David Hughes are still scheduled to appear on BBC Radio Newcastle's The Jonathan Miles Show tomorrow, 5th January 2010 at around 12:40pm. Expect plenty of X-Files related silliness.
07-Dec-09 : Outreach Programme
Our Outreach Programme for 2010 is quickly taking shape and promises to be very busy indeed. At present, 7 events are scheduled with more in the pipeline.
The Centre for Life in Newcastle are currently taking bookings for the Mini-Astro course and, if the response is anything like last year then it will be heavily over-subscribed. If you're interested then please book early to avoid disappointment.
30-Nov-09 : Jonathan Miles interview
Our interview on BBC Radio Newcastle's The Jonathan Miles Show is available for download from the Press page.
We're delighted to report that we've been invited back onto Jonathan's show early in the New Year to talk about the next meeting, which is entitled "An Observer's Guide to UFOs"
01-Dec-09 : Paul Mooney, BBC Look North Weatherman
December 1st 2009, "Weather and the Planets"
We are all familiar with weather: Wet or dry, hot or cold, it has a major impact on our everyday lives. We now understand how the movement of our planet, Earth, causes day and night and the four seasons, and how the heat from the Sun drives weather patterns around the world. The growing understanding of global warming and climate change is increasing our awareness of extreme weather and the devastation it can bring.
The Earth has much in common with the other planets in our solar system. However, the weather on our neighbouring worlds makes our own extreme weather look tame. For instance, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter is a hurricane bigger than planet Earth, which has been raging since at least the 17th Century when it was first observed with a telescope. The planet Mars, which is very similar to Earth in many ways, occasionally suffers from planet-wide dust storms where only the tallest volcano can be seen breaking through the swirling haze. Venus, presently a brilliant object in the morning sky just before dawn, has rain clouds made of sulphuric acid that can dissolve spacecraft in a matter of minutes.
For astronomers, the visibility of stars and planets is often hampered by our own atmospheric conditions. 'Back on Earth, the current state of the weather is a major concern to astronomers, professional and amateur alike. Global warming has meant that the climate in the UK is becoming less predictable,' explains David Hughes of the Luna Astronomical Society. 'We're seeing more cloud and more rain. Summers are not as long or as hot as they used to be. The weather with its resultant atmospheric conditions is crucial to anyone who is either a casual stargazer or an experienced astronomer'.
With this in mind the Luna Astronomical Society are hosting a special event with an hour long talk by Paul Mooney, Met Office trained weather forecaster and Look North's lead weather presenter.
Paul Mooney's hour long talk will explain all!!
12-Nov-09 : Luna wants you
Luna wants you! We want your heart, your soul and your mind. But, mostly, we want you to join the society and get involved.
We're recruiting now, looking for members to become part of this strange adventure. We're not hopeless geeks or lofty academics. We're just enthusiasts, eager to learn more, see more, think more.
If you're like us then come along to one of our meetings, see us in action, introduce yourself, talk to us.
We're not the Dark Side.
12-Oct-09 : Meetings Schedule Announced
The first four meetings in the 2009/2010 schedule will be as follows:
- November 3rd 2009, Inaugural meeting
- December 1st 2009, "Weather and the Planets", Paul Mooney, BBC Look North Weatherman
- January 5th 2010, "An Observer's Guide to UFO's", David Newton/David Hughes
- February 2nd 2010, "Cosmic rays, cloud cover and global warming", Sir Arnold Wolfendale
Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each month at the The Centre for Life, Newcastle upon Tyne.
We're especially pleased that the former Astronomer Royal, Sir Arnold Wolfendale and BBC Weather Man, Mr. Paul Mooney have agreed to talk to the society.
17-Sep-09: Friends of Sunderland Museum (FOSUMS)
Luna Secretary David Hughes stepped in at short notice to talk to The Friends of Sunderland Museum at The Winter Gardens, Sunderland on The History of Astronomy in the North East of England.
At first, you might not think that this part of the world has much in common with hard core astronomical research but, to the contrary, the North East of England has a rich and highky diverse heritage of working at the cutting-edge of Astronomy and astrophysics dating right back to the Dark Ages with the work of the Venerable Bede, the coming of the industrial revolution with the likes of Thomas Backhouse and Grubb Parsons, right up to the present day with Durham University's current research programme.
The response was terrific and a near capacity crowd enjoyed David's customary enthusiasm and energy as he took them through 1400 years of the region's scientific exellence.
New additions to the Public Outreach Programme
Three new entries added to the Public Outreach Programme
- 12th September 2009, Starbeque with Sunderland Astronomical Society
- 17th September 2009, Friends of Sunderland Museum (FOSUMS)
- 18th September 2009, Walkergate School
- 24th Septmeber 2009, Newcastle West Trefoil Guild
Rolling out the new society
The summer months are always a bit quiet for astronomers although recent events on Jupiter and Venus have kept us enthralled of late. Not much has been said in public of the mysterious bright cloud that has appeared in the upper atmosphere of Venus last week but NASA have been examining the swirling mass of cloud that appeared in the wake of whatever it was that slammed into Jupiter's southern polar region two weeks ago. I'm astonished that nobody has yet mentioned the strange hole in Jupiter's cloud layer that appeared in the movie 2010, the sequel to 2001, A Space Odyssey.
Anyway, we received some excellent news last week in that The Centre for Life are solidly behind the new society and have offered us a good sized room in which to hold our meetings.
We're currently planning the inaugural meeting, which will be open to all and free to attend. Here, we'll outline what Luna is about and what we have planned for the future.
Watch this space...
Luna Landings Concert
We're sorry but the Luna Landings Concert originally scheduled for Saturday 18th July then later rescheduled for Tuesday 22nd July 2009, has been cancelled. The Centre For Life were unable to give us the full use of their planetarium for the concert, which is a bit like going to the cinema and looking at a blank screen for two hours.
We've asked to reschedule the event for later in the year but Centre for Life have yet to confirm.
Solar Observing with Sunderland Astronomical Society
Sunderland Astronomical Society hosted a solar observing session on the roof of the National Glass Centre in Sunderland on Saturday 11th July 2009. Luna members were invited to tag along for what turned out to be a gloriously sunny day (For a change).
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Luna's Jules C |
SAS's Graham Darke and Lynn Henderson |
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SAS's Kevin Baxter |
SAS's Jurgen Schmol |
Major facelift for the web site
You spoke. We listened. Welcome to the new Luna Site.
The site has had a major facelift so that (hopefully) it's much, much easier to navigate. All of the menu items are now gathered together in one place, the information is more concise and informative, and the layout of the pages themselves has been greatly simplified. We've even incorporated a calendar which will highlight the date of the next meeting or any forthcoming astronomical events of any significance.
We've also updated and extended the content quite a bit with a new links page, information about joining the society, details of our new Facebook and Twitter facilities and a whole lot more.
As with any major overhaul, we're still sorting out some of the snags in the system. If you see anything that doesn't work or works but could be better then please let us know via the contact form.
Noctilucent Clouds
The season for Noctilucent Clouds (NLC's) is upon us and, over the last two weeks, observers in the North East of England have enjoyed some of the most astonishing displays in living memory.
Check out the Observer's section for recent images.