Sir Fred Hoyle was never far from controversy and is probably most widely remembered for his passionate advocacy of a ‘steady state’ universe in opposition to the ‘Big Bang’ (a term he coined). But Fred made many breakthrough contributions to astrophysics, a point often overlooked. Malcolm’s thorough review of Hoyle’s life and work began with […]
Friday 11th saw us returning to Blackheath for an observing session. After what seemed like a never ending spell of bad weather which had caused previous observing sessions to be cancelled, we finally got a break! Unfortunately while generally clear, the evening had a quantity of dew in the air which significantly reduced what we […]
On the evening of Tuesday 8 March, a group of Flamsteed members visited the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. The members were treated to a short talk on the astrophysics of star formation by one to institute’s research students, Nimisha Kumari. She outlined her work comparing star formation rates between nearby galaxies to gain a […]
Bobby Manoo treated the Flamsteed audience to another highly entertaining review of what to see in the night sky in the month of March 2016. His presentation covered: The Moon – including a challenge to take a photo of the Alpine Valley (Vallis Alpes) Planets – Jupiter, Mars and Saturn Deep Sky Objects – M104, […]
A big Flamsteed audience welcomed Dr Francisco Diego back to the society, where he gave a fascinating and thought-provoking lecture about the “Think Universe!” project. “Think Universe!” is an educational project to bring big science to elementary classrooms. Francisco took us on a journey from the creation of the universe to the present day… using […]
Our first History of Astronomy group meeting of the Flamsteed season proved to be a great success. We had about 35 Flamsteed members in attendance to hear Rory McEvoy, the Curator of Horology at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, giving a talk entitled “Just a Second..”. In his talk, Rory looked at the development of our […]
The Science Museum’s Cosmos & Culture was a ‘temporary’ exhibition opened in 2009 with the International Year of Astronomy to commemorate 400 years of telescopic astronomy. It has proved so popular that it’s still running in 2016 although scheduled to close before the end of the year. Curator Alison Boyle, who is Keeper of Science […]
Bruno Pontecorvo was the father of neutrino astronomy and a brilliant nuclear physicist who disappeared through the Iron Curtain at the height of the Cold War. He was first with an idea on how to find the ghostly neutrino, he proposed experiments that led to discovery of solar neutrinos, he realised that there is more […]
The impact of a small asteroid in Russia in 2013 reminded everyone of the potential dangers from space. Producing a fireball brighter than the Sun, over a thousand people were injured by the resulting shockwave. Larger asteroids can be much more deadly. In this talk, Professor Alan Fitzsimmons addressed what we know – and what […]
At our Christmas lecture, on Monday 14 December 2015, the Flamsteed celebrated its “sweet-16th” birthday. We had over a hundred Flamsteed members in attendance, who were also treated to a superb lecture by Professor Alan Fitzsimmons. To mark the occasion, Christina arranged for lots of little sweet bags for our members to take away, as […]
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