Society for Popular Astronomy

Like many, I have not often visited the Sky at Night forum, despite often writing for the magazine. However, now I have revisited, I see there are some threads that are quite useful. I hope the magazine doesn't just vape them as they could be useful for future reference.

This all has little to do with joining the SPA, I know but amateur astronomy is just not about meetings and talks. Someone on the committee of the Foredown Tower Astronomers, (which I set up 20 years ago as the Foredown Tower Astronomy Group), asked me recently why I joined an astronomy group if I ...

skyhawk wrote:Thank you
Welcome to Society for Popular Astronomy.

Membership
Membership:Adult 1 year (UK)
Fee:£22.00
Start date:Mon 13 May 2019

That's great news! Thank you.

This has been a very interesting and informative thread. Can I just mention a couple of things? Firstly the Society officers are unfailingly helpful in my own experience, for example, my subscription became due in March when I was out of the country for a long time. I tried to renew by paypal but c...

I think I prefer "doing" than listening which is why I never attend local club meetings, I WILL make an effort to travel to an SPA meeting now I have re joined, and am glad I have. It will be great to see you! We are always interested in our members' views on how we can improve! Thank you for being...

I was a SPA member but there were no benefits to me being in Wales. I can not afford to travel to the one venue, London, there are none in Wales, which is a shame. We had a meeting in Wales last year (Cardiff). Almost all our meetings are now videoed, so that those who cannot attend may still view ...

A special message to users of the Forum. Thank you for using the SPA’s Forum, and we are glad that you find it useful. We know that not everyone here is a current member of the SPA, and there has never been a requirement to be a member to take part in the discussions. However, as one of the service...

Here is a crop from a photo I took on the evening of May 1st from Botany Bay, Broadstairs.

I imaged the nova last night. It appears to be below magnitude 7 now. The session was enlivened by a lovely slow fireball that dropped below Polaris at around 20.10 UT and looked of similar brightness to Venus.

As most forum members will know, the Perseid meteor shower is now active, and sources generally quote July 17 as the date when activity begins. I was interested in NASA research, led by Peter Jenniskens, that found the earliest Perseids to occur at the start of July and for the shower to continue in...

Thank you, Steve! It was indeed a hugely successful event, with a great line-up of speakers. So glad that everyone seems to have enjoyed it!

Paul

Sorry David, I have only just seen this. It is a crop of a single shot. 1/25 of a second at ISO 3200, using a Canon EOS 600D.

Mike, I also found the conjunction spectacular. And the air was so clear that the planets shone brightly when barely risen and still close to the horizon, having just cleared a line of cloud in the direction of Belgium. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R4gjLXsWX4g/U_cYLewZVcI/AAAAAAAALSU/fcIBoy9Kw...

There are reports that a usually minor meteor shower, the Andromedids, is currently undergoing something of an outburst. Here's a report on Spaceweather.com. European observers are being urged to look out now!

"However, I'm still wondering which comet the Bayeux Tapestry depicts" It is Halley's comet that is shown. The comet reached perihelion around March 20 (old style, I presume) The Battle of Hastings was on October 14. So the comet had been seen during the previous few months, and it was taken to be ...