The Parker Solar probe – ‘touching’ the Sun

John Anderson will start our evening by outlining the story of this remarkable spacecraft and the discoveries it has made.

Launched in 2018 and having already completed several close approaches, the probe came within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface on December 24th, 2024… and survived!

The Sun and the aurora

Terry Griffiths will then continue her account of the aurora (started in December) with a description of the processes within the Sun that cause charged particles to reach Earth and produce that dazzling show.

Cosmic Rays

We welcome back Dr. Steve Barrett from the University of Liverpool for another of his mind-blowing and fascinating talks.

High-energy charged particles are continually raining down on the Earth. Where do they come from and how do they gain so much energy?

This talk includes a demonstration of a cloud chamber that allows cosmic rays to be seen

UDATE Following his excellent talk, Steve has been in touch say he’d be happy to take questions by email. He’s also offered more information:

If anyone missed grabbing a handout of the slides of my talk, they can be downloaded here:
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~sdb/Talks/Cosmic-Rays-HLCO.pdf
and a video recording of the talk is here:
https://youtu.be/P6wmB0Ae9UU

For anyone interested in building a cloud chamber for themselves this is the article in the journal ‘Physics Education’ that started it all:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/ad506c

The article in the Journal of the BAA:
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~sdb/CloudChamber/BAA-Cosmic-Rays.pdf

Detailed instructions describing how to build a cloud chamber for £35:
https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/~sdb/CloudChamber/Building-Cloud-Chamber.pdf

Weights and Measures
Richard Bullock from Altrincham and District Astronomical Society will take us on a journey around the “top10” objects in our solar system.

A stylized illustration of our solar system (Image credit : NASA/JPL)

This talk was originally scheduled for January 9th BUT, due to the freezing conditions, it was postponed and has been rescheduled for January 16th.

Things that go ‘Bump’ in the Dark.
Mark Holmes will present the story behind the ‘Blaze Star’, better known perhaps as T Corona Borealis. This object is one of a family of long period variable stars which is due to brighten any time now. Its increase in magnitude will be spectacular when it finally goes off!

Image credits : Stellarium (L) and Pete Lawrence / Sky at Night Magazine (R)

From the Rainbow’s end to Armageddon, our relationship with Messier 31.

Mark Holmes will describe just how long our relationship with M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy) has been and, hopefully, how long it will last. He will also outline the key role that M31 has played in the development of our understanding of our place in the Universe.

Refurbishment and Upgrade of HLCO

After standing for 10 years, the wooden elements of the observatory (the fence and warm room) have been showing signs of their age. Taking advantage of the summer break, significant refurbishments and technical upgrades have been achieved and we are now ready for the autumn season. Terry Griffiths and Chris Digata will describe the progress that has been made and show some impressive images taken with our upgraded equipment. We will also outline further upgrades that we hope to complete next year.

This presentation sees the return of Steve Barrett from Liverpool University, who, in his own inimitable style, will tell the story of the development, construction and history of the truly iconic ‘Hale 200″ Telescope’, which has operated on Mount Palomar since ‘first light’ in 1949.

Despite it no longer being the largest telescope in the world, the development of active optics has kept this instrument at the cutting edge of astronomical research.

Astronomy in Flatland

We will be welcoming Dr Colin Steele, from the Manchester University school of Mathematics who last spoke to us in 2017.

This time Colin’s talk is inspired by the satirical novella ‘Flatland’ by Edwin Abbott, published in 1885.

Colin will consider what astronomy would be like in a 2-dimensional universe. One significant feature would be that gravity, rather than following an inverse-square law, would simply be inversely proportional to distance. The shapes of orbits would be different as a result.

Solar Flares: The Most Powerful Explosions in the Solar System.

Our speaker is Philippa Browning, Professor of Astrophysics in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester.

Solar flares are dramatic explosions in the outer atmosphere of the Sun – the solar corona. They produce electromagnetic radiation and beams of high-energy charged particles, which can have serious detrimental effects on space instrumentation and on power systems and communication on Earth