Society for Popular Astronomy

Thank you Steve - and thank you also to the many others who have e-mailed to say how much they all enjoyed the day. It was certainly very hard work getting it all together, but was also extremely satisfying to see how well it ran on the day and to see so many people obviously enjoying themselves! It...

Hello Paul

If you email Barry Turvey ( membership @ popastro.com ) he can tell you how to get hold of additional copies of the magazine.

Regards, Guy.

How about something completely different? It's the Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show at Tatton Park, Cheshire, this week. A feature is a series of Galaxy Gardens, inspired by astronomy and space - congratulations to the National Schools Observatory garden which has won a Gold Medal, no mean fe...

The regional meeting in the north of England will be held on Saturday 11 May, at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston. A flyer will be enclosed with the March-April PA. See you there!

I couldn't believe it... just an hour or so before the news broke I was reassuring BBC Radio Nottingham listeners that the asteroid posed no danger, and that other major impacts were very rare. Random statistics rule OK!!!

David's being modest here. Along with SPA Vice President Robin Scagell, he has co-authored an excellent book - Philip's Stargazing with Binoculars. It's available post free from the SPA shop which you can access from the SPA website home page.

52. Check the list of suppliers who offer discounts to SPA members. You may be able to save enough to cover one or more years subscription to the SPA....

Dear All

As Paul says, the SPA does not allow advertising on either the website or the forum. I have never seen pop-ups such as those Cliff describes in any of Windows 98, XP or (currently) 7.

Happy (pop-up free) Christmas to all, Guy (Secretary, SPA).

White LED street lights may well look very bright if you stand (or drive) under them and look up, but the big advantage is that it's possible to direct the beam of light very precisely at the road and footpath. In this way they are both economical in energy usage, and lessen sideways and upwards lig...

Sorry to contradict you Paul, but At the Castle Gate is actually the opening movement of Pelléas et Mélisande , the suite of incidental music written in 1905 by Jean Sibelius for Maurice Maeterlinck's 1892 drama Pelléas et Mélisande . Its atmospheric tones are perfect for conjuring up the atmosphere...

I entirely agree with the comments about how S&T has changed over the years - I have just let my subscription lapse after about 40 years!

Jeff Stevens has recently decided to step down from the position of Director of the SPA Occultation Section. I am pleased to announce that Mell Jeffery will succeed Jeff as Director. Thanks are due to Jeff for his work with the Section, and for the large amount of time that he has devoted to produci...

Cliff wrote:I'm guessing but I think my previous suggestion the books original price as being £25 might have been incorrect (?). Perhaps it was £20 and on offer at £15 ?

For the record, the original published price of the book was, and still is, £20.
Regards, Guy.

A bright fireball seen from a wide area in the UK has been reported: see the BBC news report here
All observations should please be made to the SPA Meteor Section in the usual way. The BBC has also asked if anybody has captured images of the event; please let me know if you have done so.

For your information, when we send the ticket(s) we also enclose full details of the timetable for the day together with how to get to RAL by road and rail.