2024
January 4th: Trevarrian
With all the new telescopes that have arrived over Christmas, we will be holding another evening where you can bring your new scope for some help and advice of setting it up. We have also received a number of requests on how to set up an equatorial mount for visual observing as well as some users whose go-to mounts are not pointing to targets as well as they expect, so we’ll help them troubleshoot these problems.
January 17th: : Tretherras School Newquay
We have another observing event for you. This time it’s organised by Tretherras School, Newquay and we have been asked to help out with a few scopes.
The event is open to everyone (even if you don’t have a child at the the school ) and kicks off at 17:00 on 17 January. Click the link below for full location information:
https://tretherras.net/contact-us/
January 18th: : Summercourt
Noel will talking about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy.
February 1st: Trevarrian
Image processing for the beginner. Following on from imaging introduction we did in December, this evening we will be allowing you to get hands on experience on some basic image processing techniques. Please bring your own laptops with you – we will provide and list of the software you will need to download and install beforehand.
February 15th: Summercourt
Tonight Nick will be discussing one of the most popular free desktop planetaria – Stellarium. Most users never get beyond the default setup, so Nick will show you a number of options that will maximize your usage and enjoyment from this software.
Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. It runs on all major OS platforms and can be downloaded from the Stellarium website here.
March 7th: Trevarrian
This evening our resident Solar imaging wizzo, Nigel will show how he processes his wonderful Ha Solar images taken through his heavily modified Coranado HST Hα scope. After the tea break we will also be showing a number of solar filter types and their safe use on your own telescope to help you observe increasing Solar activity during 2024 and beyond.
March 16th: Club Annual Dinner
Held at the Plume of Feathers at Mitchel. The closing date for booking your place is Tuesday 5th, March.
March 21st: : Summercourt
Dan’s talk will be on Aurora. He will start with what the aurora actually are , i.e. the reactions with charged particles with different elements in the atmosphere and how the magnetosphere channels them. He’ll then move onto solar events that release them and why they like equinoxes. He’ll also describe how other phenomena, that look like aurora, are formed.
April 18th: Summercourt
The Club AGM: Your chance to shape the future of how the club is run and what activities and talks we provide going through 2024 and into early 2025. If we have time after the meeting Frank will give a 10-minute talk on ‘Historical Eclipses and Transits’
April 20th: Sun & Stars – Carnewas
The first of this years Sun & Stars events. The event, as always, is dependant on clear skies, but this evening we hope to be able to see sunspot activityon the surface of the Sun and maybe a brief look at Jupiter as they both set in the western sky. The Moon will be full as it rises in the east, which is not ideal, but will still allow us to observe some interesting Lunar features. As it gets darker we should be able to show some interesting Open and Globular star clusters throughout the evening.
Click the link below for full location information https://goo.gl/maps/kFJSUZd588YQvNaS9
May 16th: Summercourt
EAA, or Electronically Assisted Astronomy is an ever increasing popular way to do Astronomy. While it uses as camera to make observations, it’s not astrophotography and because you are not looking through an eyepiece, you don’t need to be at the telescope to do it. Nick will give an overall view on what EAA is and how you can simply and relatively cheaply use your existing go-to telescope- no matter what kind it is and maybe change the way you observe the night sky.
After the tea break Glynn will be giving us his 10 minute talk ‘Meet the Herschels’
Meeting Leader Roy
June 20th: Summercourt
This evening Ross will be discussing his upgrade of a basic £499 GSO manufactured 150mm f/4 Newtonian. These are mass-produced entry-level scopes, but the mirrors in them are particularly well made. However, in its basic form, it has a number of mechanical issues which need improvement. Ross will show us how he made these modifications and now has a wide field astrograph producing very high-quality images, for a fraction of the cost of much more exotic and expensive offerings from Japan and Italy.
After the break, Noel will be giving his short talk on Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and one of the most important discoveries in the history of astronomy, which was postponed from January.
Meeting Leader Glynn
June 29th: Norman Lockyer Observatory
A day trip for club members to visit the NLO in Sidmouth to attend their annual Astrofair. Activities at the event will include;
– Free tours with talks of the Historical Telescope Dome
– Free Access to The Planetarium Shows
– Free programme of Events and Talks by the NLO Groups
– Live Solar Observing (weather permitting)
– Displays from Astronomy Societies
– Trade Marquee with Exhibitors: Widescreen Centre, First Light Optics, Bresser, Astronomy Now
July 18th: Summercourt
Nigel to give talk, TBA – Meeting Leader Dean
August 15th: Summercourt
External speaker, TBA and 10 min talk ‘Star Types’ by Nick – Meeting Leader Daniel
September 19th: Summercourt
External speaker, TBA and ‘Features on the Moon’ by Mike – Meeting Leader Frank
October 17th : Summercourt
‘Globular Clusters’ by Dean and ‘Supernova’ by Nigel – Meeting Leader Mark
November 21st: Summercourt
‘Quiz Night’ – Meeting Leaders Frank and Phil
December 19th
Due to the proximity of the Christmas break, there will be no 3rd Thursday meeting this month.