We were very fortunate to be taken to see the astronomy reserve collection by curator Dr Rebekah Higgitt.  In common with many of the team, Becky is very busy just now with a number of projects including preparations for the special exhibition to mark the 2014 tercentenary of the Longitude Act.  She is also preparing […]

Torrential rain for most of Friday 24 May put paid to any plans that we had for running a Blackheath stargazing session on Friday evening and so an early decision was made to move the session to Saturday. This proved to be a prescient move, as the weather for most of Saturday was glorious and […]

The Flamsteed were privileged to welcome Pete Lawrence from the BBC Sky at Night presenting team for what proved to be a superb lecture on Solar Observing. Pete visited Greenwich in January when “The Sky at Night” came to film a special programme about our nearest star, the Sun. Not wanting to let an opportunity […]

On what proved to be a most interesting evening, we had the second Flamsteed “History of Astronomy” group meeting, with Flamsteed member Mirek Colakov talking about the Armillary Sphere which he constructed himself to demonstrate how the instrument can be used. Mirek is an experienced yachtsman and has a deep interest in celestial navigation and the […]

Our meeting in the Endeavour Room, although long overdue, remains popular, with one new and eight existing members in attendance. I apologised for the length of time between meetings and explained how Mike Meynell and I intend to schedule more regular events. We envisage the Radio Group getting together formally every 2 months with more […]

Coinciding with the launch of the Flamsteed “History of Astronomy” group, we were delighted to welcome Dr Rebekah Higgitt who is Curator of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Observatory Greenwich & National Maritime Museum. Rebekah came to discuss the role of the Astronomer Royal in the early days of the Greenwich Observatory, […]

The inaugural meeting of the Flamsteed History of Astronomy Special Interest Group took place on Saturday 20 April 2013 in the South Building of the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Around twenty Flamsteed members ignored the beautiful weather conditions outside to help shape the direction of this new group, which is being led by Mike Dryland. The […]

The second of two Flamsteed workshop in the space of a fortnight returned to our favourite topic of telescopes. David and Roger, assisted by Martin and myself, presented a 2-hour workshop on the different types of telescopes and mounts, giving some general advice to those who were either thinking of buying a telescope or needed […]

The Flamsteed were delighted to welcome Martin Siegert, who is Professor of Geosciences at the University of Bristol. Martin is a glaciologist, which may have left many attendees wondering why he was giving a lecture to an astronomy society! All became clear when Martin explained how he was the principal investigator of the Natural Environmental […]

Some of you may have been aware that we’ve had some film students from Ravensbourne University attending a few of our recent events. They’ve now completed their film and have kindly placed a copy online so that we can see the result. The first couple of minutes are about the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, […]