Stan Payne with a Light Bulb

Science is deeply rooted within society and culture and while, at the Flamsteed, we are incredibly privileged to have access to talks from professionals in the field of astronomy, there is tremendous value in hearing the voice of people who have not dedicated their working careers to the subject. There is a great breadth of […]

Mona Evans

“We live in very exciting times for Astronomy but what we know now was built on the discoveries of the seekers of knowledge of the past who pushed the boundaries of what was known in their time”. This was how Mona Evans opened her presentation for the evening as she began her talk about the […]

“Where else to start but at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.” This was quite an appropriate introduction to Malcolm’s talk at the 2nd meeting of the History of Astronomy group for this season. Malcolm has been a member of the Flamsteed Astronomy Society for over 10 years and served as Chairman for four (4) years. He […]

Talk on Radio Interferometry

On the 10th January 2018, a group of 23 Flamsteed members successfully negotiated the “get out of London” rush hour traffic to visit the Bayfordbury Observatory near Hertford, Hertfordshire. The Bayfordbury Observatory is the University of Hertfordshire’s teaching observatory for astronomy and astrophysics and is regarded as one of the finest astronomical teaching observatories in […]

It was a late Friday night many years ago that Andy Sawers stood in front of the National Portrait Gallery in London, awaiting the night bus to get home. He glanced around and saw a man standing in front of a telescope offering passers-by a view of the Galilean Moons for 50p. Andy took him […]

A few minutes before the Flamsteed’s first session with the Great Equatorial Telescope began, members were sat in the cafeteria guessing what our backup program might entail, for all we saw outside were clouds everywhere we looked. But then ROG’s astronomer, Brendan Owens, approached us with his usual beaming grin of optimism and told us […]

The exhibition called Observatory Life in the ‘astronomer’s apartments’ at the ROG has been under development for some time.  It tells the stories of two of the Astronomers Royal and their families who lived and worked at the Observatory.  The curator of the Royal Observatory, Dr Louise Devoy, generously agreed to show us round the […]

A total of 25 Flamsteed members made the trip down to Herstmonceux on Saturday 15 July 2017, for a visit to Herstmonceux Castle and the Observatory Science Centre. We had a guided tour of Herstmonceux Castle in the morning, followed by a tour of all the telescope domes at the Observatory Science Centre in the […]

Blue Streak and Thor-Able

Report by Christina Chester Everything about the National Space Centre in Leicester is suggestive of the grandeur and excitement of space travel. A visit, arranged for Saturday 17th June by Mike Meynell, gave Flamsteed members the opportunity to see this attraction that’s dedicated to space exploration and space science. Upon entering the National Space Centre’s […]

Bobby Manoo gave an excellent talk about “amazing astronomical alignments”. Bobby was inspired during a visit to Egypt when he saw the pyramids and especially the temple at Abu Simbel. He began with a short introduction to the equinoxes and solstices, and a look at the ‘analemma’ pattern traced out by the position of the […]