King's Lynn and District Astronomy Society

Promoting astronomy for all ages across West Norfolk

Interesting geology in first detailed images of Pluto

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Interesting geology on Pluto. Amazing to think we are still discovering what one of our own planets in our solar system looks like!

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Image credit: NASA ( https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html )
Pluto’s Orientation with the Equator and Central Meridian from 10th July 2015.

An annotated image of Pluto indicates features and includes a reference globe showing Pluto’s orientation with the equator and central meridian in bold.

New Horizons is at its closest approach in 3 days time, expect even more detailed images then. You can follow the mission here at this web link to Nasa’s New Horizons website… https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html

First Visit FREE to non members

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Great News! It has been decided by the Society that all First visits by any non members to an Evening talk will now be free. This will allow you to make up your mind if you would like to join the Society. We are excited to offer this opportunity and hope it will help anyone who isn’t quite sure about paying the £5 non member fee for their first visit. It’s only fair we make it as easy and accessible as we can to anyone who is unsure. This offer has now been added to our Membership Fees page, and will continue indefinitely. We look forward to meeting you….

Kings Lynn Lions Fun Day

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Just a short post with some great photos of our recent Solar Outreach day at the Walks Park in Kings Lynn a couple of weeks back. This was at the annual Lions Fun day, we had great fun showing the general public the delights of Astronomy and most prominently Solar Astronomy. It was a beautifully sunny day which allowed the best views of the Sun I’ve seen all year. We fully intend to go back next year, and will let you all know once next years date is organised.

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iPhone shot of the Sun through a Coronado PST Solar Scope. Image by: Andy Milner

 

 

Sunday 7 June – Kings Lynn Astro at Lions Fun Day in The Walks

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We will have a stall at the Lions Annual Fun Day at The Walks Park in Kings Lynn this Sunday 7th June. Come along and enjoy observation of the Sun through our specially adapted telescopes. Should be a really fun day!

The Walks,
King’s Lynn,
Norfolk,
PE30 1PE
Details for the Venue:

Entertainment for the whole family including:

Stunt Mania – Motorcycle Stunt Team
K9 Quackers – Sheepdog/Duck Display
Streetwise
Earthquake Cheer Leading Group
Kelley’s Dance Crew

Plus:

Pinxton Puppets
Children’s Entertainer – Stevie Spud
Trade Stands & Charity Stalls
Large Fun Fair

Disabled access

Our recent visit to Shouldham Primary School

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I just wanted to thank Shouldham Primary School for last Saturday 18th April , your staff, your pupils and the Friends of School for making us so welcome yesterday. You are to complemented on the enthusiasm and depth of knowledge of your pupils.

We hope that our visit made the day even more enjoyable. We certainly enjoyed every minute of our time spent with you and your school.

Finally, I hope you get many hours of enjoyment out of the telescopes you purchased and that it will inspire pupils and staff to take a greater interest in the Cosmos.

John Craythorne
Chairman

Observation Evenings

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Good Afternoon All,

As the nights are getting lighter and Astronomical darkness is starting quite late as the summer approaches, it was decided to end the evenings until the winter and darker skies are back with us again.

Keep an eye on our events page for future talks, and out reach events planned.

Kind Regards,

Leon Askew
Membership Secretary

April Night Sky Guides

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At the beginning of each month we will post links to some popular guides to help you plan and decide what to view or image.

Awesome Astronomy prepare a short Audio guide and this months guide is focused on Galaxies. As the constellations Virgo and Leo are nicely placed there is a plethora of galaxies to choose from…
Check out their guide here: http://www.awesomeastronomy.com/

Paul Money posts his guide each month and you can find his here:
http://www.astrospace.co.uk/Astrospace/monthly-sky/monthlynightsky.html

Telescope House prepare a nice guide here: http://www.telescopehouse.com/acatalog/Telescope-House-Monthly-Sky-Guide.html

For Binocular users http://binocularsky.com/ will soon publish his guide for April so head over to this website, click on Newsletter then click on Current issue. As of 31st March the newsletter is still the March edition, please visit this on the 1st or near after for an updated April edition. Steve Tonkin does a great job of providing some tips and targets to view with your binoculars. Its worth looking around his website for tips too on buying a new pair of bins for astronomy use.

You can download a skymap for the northern hemisphere for April here:
http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html  Click on the download link for April Northern Hemisphere.

Please find a skychart I have made for April for our location dated April 15th at midnight. I have prepared this in black and white for easy printing.

April SkyChart Tottenhill

Well all that remains is for me to say Happy Easter and Clear Skies!

Thank you Dr Simon Sheridan

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Thank you to Dr Simon Sheridan for a really interesting talk last evening for his talk on Rosetta – Landing on a Comet from Planning to Reality.

Special thanks to Ray Price for arranging Dr Sheridans visit last night, the talk on the Rosetta and Philae mission was excellent and being able to see and touch the replica pieces to Ptolemy (Philae Lander) and Beagle 2 and also hold a piece of Mars was fantastic.

Dr Sheridan was really nice guy and his willingness to stay and chat for so long after the talk was an unexpected bonus.

Dr Simon Sheridan’s key activities include:

  • Development of the gas handling and processing system on the Ptolemy instrument (Rosetta Lander)
  • The development of miniature mass spectrometers for sub-surface deployment by either low-speed mole or high-speed penetrator devices
  • The development of Carbon Nano Tube devices for use as low power mass spectrometer ionisation sources

Put simply this guy designed the major parts of Ptolemy which will analyse samples from the comet to help us understand what it is and more about the beginnings of our solar system.

You can follow the ESA team on twitter:-
Ptolemy team:  https://twitter.com/Philae_Ptolemy
and the whole ESA Rosetta Team here https://twitter.com/ESA_Rosetta

Once again a massive thank you to Ray, who unfortunately had to leave early, get well soon.
Clear skies to all.

Tonights Talk – Rosetta – Landing on a Comet by Dr Simon Sheridan

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Landing on a Comet – from planning to reality

Dr Simon Sheridan – Research European Space Agency, Associate Lecturer of Open University in Planetary sciences.  Working on the Rosetta project, in particular the Ptolemy lander will give an interesting talk about the mission and an insight in to what is happening next.

He has promised to bring a selection of items from previous missions i.e. Mars Lander, Titan Probe, Meteorites etc.rosetta_poster hobo std

Stargazing Live

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Following on from the very successful Junior Star Gazing Live in January. We held a Star Gazing Live event to coincide with the BBC programmes.

The event was opened by our patron Henry Bellingham MP and Councillor John W Doyle, Mayor of Downham Market.

Henry Bellingham MP, John Craythorne, John W Doyle, Mayor of Downham Market

Henry Bellingham MP, John Craythorne, John W Doyle, Mayor of Downham Market

There were static displays of telescopes and Astronomical equipment, a scale model of the solar system, information on the sun and some excellent pictures of the partial solar eclipse from 20th March 2015.

There was great advice available about what sort of telescope to choose for a beginner and how to take photographs of the moon and stars.