GAIA – Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics

Gaia has spent a decade mapping the Milky Way by making three trillion observations of two billion stars.
In a welcome return visit, Dr. Steve Barrett of the University of Liverpool will explain how this was done and what will we learn when all the data is analysed.

Image credit ©ESA–D. Ducros, 2013

Following his excellent talk, Steve offered a couple of links:
Slides of the talk be downloaded from https://www.liv.ac.uk/~sdb/Talks/Gaia-HLCO.pdf
and a video recording of the talk is on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NmaogYK4uqU

AI in Astrophotography
… how Artificial Intelligence enhances space imaging

HLCO Steering Group member Eric McElroy last spoke to us in July 2025 when he described his personal journey into astrophotography.  He now returns to describe the various uses of AI in the field of astrophotography, drawing the distinction between AI-generated data and AI-enhanced data to show how AI can be used in an ethical way to improve data capture while maintaining data integrity.

If you have ever wondered about the difference between scientific and artistic images, and their relative merits, Eric may help you decide.

Scilly Astronomy and the HLCO Winter Project

There will be a double presentation by Mark Holmes for the November meeting. The first half will be ‘Scilly Astronomy’ in which Mark will describe the success of an HLCO outreach project.

In the second half he will turn to practical matters at our own observatory here at HLCO.  Mark will outline a list of 10 objects we will target over the Autumn/Winter period for imaging with our upgraded kit, with a view to presenting the results in Spring 2026.

Some Strange Characteristics of Gravity

Andy Verwer of MaccAstro will present a two-part talk to answer the questions:
    a) Why do we get two identical high tides per day?
    b) Lagrange points: what are they and why are they useful in space flight?

Mapping the Universe to reveal its dark secrets

Our speaker will be Dr Steve Cunnington from the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, Universities of Portsmouth and Manchester.

Steve says “We sort of understand how our Universe works and evolves. However, this relies on the existence of dark matter and dark energy, which should make up 95% of the Universe. The problem is that we lack an understanding of these phenomena, and they remain undetected in particle colliders.

Strong arguments therefore exist that perhaps our interpretation of the Universe is missing something. For example, maybe we need to extend Einstein’s general relativity, our current description of gravity. It is the job of cosmologists to use the latest tools to observe our Universe and test such possibilities.“

In this talk, Steve will give an overview of how large radio telescopes, such as the Square Kilometre Array, will provide new ways to map the structure of the Universe by recording how its content is distributed. These maps, which stretch unprecedented scales and depths, provide clues to how gravity works and can help reveal the nature of dark energy and dark matter. 

Image credit: NASA

We will be taking a break in August but we will be back in September.

Meanwhile, as mentioned at the July talk, you might want to head over to FaceBook to take a look at the HLCO-branded merchandise that is now available. Just search for the group called “High Legh Community Observatory”.

If you are not on FaceBook, you can follow this link to the catalogue
https://online.fliphtml5.com/gthel/nyrs/

Eric through the looking glass

Eric McElroy will take us on his personal journey into astrophotography, from conception to reality.
He will describe the adventure step by step, from being a complete beginner to producing images like this (NGC 4565 The Needle Galaxy ) in only a matter of months… despite the challenge of working in a Bortle 6 area (i.e. under a bright suburban sky).

Image: Wikipedia

The Blue Jewel that is Neptune

Mark Holmes will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the furthest planet from the Sun but were afraid to ask…

Image credit
NASA / Voyager 2 / PDS / OPUS / Ardenau4

Slides from this talk can be found here