Wiltshire Astronomical Society Posts

Our monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday 1st November 2022 at the Lye Pavilion Hall in Seend (Rusty Lane), please see meetings page for more details. This month we welcome Chris Hooker who will give an in person talk on the planet Mercury.

Notices:

Last month at the Hall, we experimented with a speaker delivering their talk over Zoom. It appeared to go well but please support us and provide any feedback in person or via the https://wasnet.org.uk/contact-us/ page.

The society urgently needs some volunteers; Speaker Secretary and someone to help with Teas/Coffee at meetings. Without active volunteers, the monthly meetings will struggle to continue in the current format. Thanks in advance for any support you can give and ask any queries if you’re interested in what is involved.

** UPDATE. 2022-11-01 14:51 GMT **

Many thanks to Andy for putting together the November newsletter

Clear skies

** Post updated Tue 2022-10-04 15:54 BST **

Our monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday 3rd October 2022 at the Lye Pavilion Hall in Seend (Rusty Lane), please see meetings page for more details.

This month we welcome Paul Money who will talking on “The Trials & Tribulations of Voyager”. This month we have set up the ability to allow speakers to give talks remotely and broadcast to the normal meeting Hall. This is an important step forward for the society, as it allows us to have bring a wider range of speakers from further afield. Please support us and attend the hall in person. All feedback welcome on how this goes.

Also, if any members have yet to renew their membership for this season, please visit the membership site available via https://wasnet.org.uk/membership/. If you encounter any issues, there is a contact email address on the membership page, so please get in touch.

Thanks again to Andy for dutifully putting together the October Newsletter, link below.

We welcome back members for our first meeting of the new season, scheduled for tonight Tuesday 6th September 19:45 for 20:00 start, held in person at Lye Pavilion Hall in Seend (Rusty Lane) see meetings page for more details. Please come along and support us in person if you are a member and we are open to non-members alike.

Tonight we welcome Mark Radice who an alumnus of WAS, who will be speaking on “Obseving the Night Sky”, see Mark’s website for further info.

We will also be discussing some of the various volunteer roles that are needed to keep the society going. Without volunteers the society will not be able to continue, so please step forward if you would like to see us thrive.

Once again, thanks to Andy Burns for his dilligent work on putting together the monthly newsletter.

We are looking forward to our new season and are pleased to annouce our list of speakers, below. Many thanks to our speaker Secretary Peter Chappell for his hard work in organising this. We have several speakers that are yet to annouce their topics but will confirm in due course.

We are planning to meet at Seend Hall as normal (pre-pandemic) – further details on the meetings page. However, several speakers will not be travelling in person, therefore will delilver their talk over zoom. We’d like to attempt to organise some audio-visual kit to be able to broadcast remote speakers into the Hall via the projector/speakers, and vice-versa broadcast in-person speakers over a zoom call to our remote members that cannot attend. This is under review and will update you further.

6 Sep 2022 Mark Radice > Observing the Deepsky
4 Oct 2022 Paul Money > The Trials & Tribulations of Voyager (speaker over zoom)
1 Nov 2022 Chris Hooker > The planet Mercury
6 Dec 2022 Martin Griffiths > How the Moon was formed
3 Jan 2023 Mike Alexander > Heaven’s on Earth (speaker over zoom)
7 Feb 2023 Prof. David Southwood > TBA
7 Mar 2023 Mary McIntyre > Shadows in Space & the stories they tell
4 Apr 2023 Chris Starr > Heavy Metal World
2 May 2023 Dr Paul A Daniels > TBA
6 Jun 2023 Andrew Lound > TBA

Hi, just a quick reminder of our upcoming June monthly meeting held on ONLINE only via Zoom, on Tuesday 7th June 2022 at 19:45 for an 20:00 start. This is due to a regular Hall venue in Seend undergoing emergency maintenance works. Thanks for your understanding with this. Will will delay the AGM under the September meeting too when this can be held in person.

For our speaker this month, we welcome Prof. Matt Griffin who will give a talk titled “The Hazards of Asteroid Impacts on Earth – should we worry?”.

Zoom meeting details:

URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81811773783?pwd=T25tUHFrMFZHWlpSQmtRM1h1dG1PUT09
Meeting ID: 818 1177 3783
Passcode: 678966

Thanks once again to Andy for putting together this months newsletter, download below.

Thank you for all the support to the society for this season, and we will look forward to meeting more regularly in person from September onwards for the 2022-2023 season.

Hi, just a quick reminder of our upcoming monthly meeting will be our first in-person meeting in some while and will be held at The Pavilion, Rusty Lane, Seend SN12 6NS (click to Google Map) on Tuesday 3rd May 2022 at 19:30 for an 20:00 start.

For our speaker this month, we welcome back the excellent Andrew Lound who will no doubt treat us to an entertaining take on “The Moon at Christmas: The Epic Voyage of Apollo 8”.

Thanks once again to Andy for putting together this months newsletter:

Hi, just a quick reminder of our upcoming monthly meeting will be held (online via Zoom) on Tuesday 5th April 2022 at 19:45.

The Zoom Details are:
URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82352359148?pwd=VTAvMGFPYkdUdDlsQWtPWWs5S3JWZz09
Meeting ID: 823 5235 9148
Passcode: 691538

For our speaker, we welcome back Pete Williamson (FRAS) who will give the talk “Herschel to Hawkwind: Astronomy & Music & How each other influence each other”.

We were blessed with clear skies once again for our March observing session (held on the last Friday of the month) where we had a cracking turnout at our regular site of Lacock, see our Observing page for more details.

UPDATE. Many thanks Andy for crafting this month’s newsletter, link below.

Hi, just a quick reminder of our upcoming online (zoom) meeting tonight Tuesday 1st March 2022. We are not meeting in person at the Hall in Seend for the time being.

The Zoom Details are:
URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89151504770?pwd=VVFUZU1IUXdDcHl3V293Z1o1alpBdz09
Meeting ID: 891 5150 4770 
Passcode: 496458

For our speaker, we welcome back long time Wiltshire AS regular, Martin Griffiths. Martin’s talk is “Dark Energy and Dark Matter”.

Thanks to Chris Brooks for organising/running a successful observing session on Friday 26 Feb where we had 12 newcomers who I think enjoyed the session and looking through a telescope for the first time.

Thanks to Andy Burns for his steadfast work with March newsletter:

Hi, just a quick reminder of our upcoming online (zoom) meeting on Tuesday 1st February 2022. We are not meeting in person at the Hall in Seend for the time being.

The Zoom Details are:
URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85920084062?pwd=UTZRdnd5RnVtaG12dGVGeDdXQTE2QT09
Meeting ID: 859 2008 4062
Passcode: 540970

At February’s meeting, we welcome back friend of the society, Professor David Southwood, who will give the talk “Local puzzles in Cosmic Magnetism”.

UPDATE: please find below link to the February 2022 newsletter, kindly put together by Andy.

Thanks