July 5th - Starbecue 2003 Print E-mail

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Cristina Ramos, Mike McRoberts, Jeff and Miriam Harries and Frank Witham enjoy a joke during the afternoon.
It was the perfect weather - not too hot not too cold. It most certainly did not rain. As usual the Hemmings turned out in force, most of them doing the work. Tony, remembering last years "bushfire", had decided on slightly less charcoal. Everything was cooked to perfection.

The early comers were made most welcome and by mid afternoon, the garden was packed. There were the usual faces, such as Gilbert Satterthwaite - our President, Sue Peters and her husband, Brian Mellors, Malcolm Pullan and his family and some some welcome new ones as well - Bob and Yvonne Merrison to name but a few.

Ray Hemming had thoughtfully put out a small television to show the womens finals at Wimbledon, although not many took up the kind offer as the day rolled by. It was anidillic English summer afternoon.

Some of the last members to leave helped with the clearing up. Everyone in the Society that came enjoyed the day immensely and it is hoped that this tradition can continue.
 
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Future Events

Apologies
Our apologies for the lock-out at our last Thursday meeting. We hope we'll be able to re-arrange a date for Alec Boksenberg to give us his talk about "What the Stuff Between Galaxies Tells Us" at a later date.
 
Special Events
From time to time we arrange outings and other special events like these:

Deep Sky Camps

These are held at various locations. Usually we use commercial camp sites, and each visitor will be expected to pay the camp site operator for their own pitch. We'll usually try to arrange for our pitches to be in a group, so you'll need to mention you're one of the astronomers when you book.

Occasionally the Society books a site for its exclusive use, and on these occasions we'll expect all attendees (anyone visiting the site) to contribute to the cost, even if they're not actually camping on site.

Outings

In recent years we have visited places like the Greenwich Observatory, The radio telescopes and historic instruments at Cambridge, and the Herschel museum in Bath.

Open Days

These have usually co-incided with relatively predictable astronomical phenomena like meteor showers, and have included observing, short lectures and demonstrations. The most recent one was in August 2003 for the National Astronomy Week.

Public Lectures & Exhibitions

A recent one of our our exhibitions was our 21st Anniversary Celebration entitled Universe Day, held at St Olave's School in Orpington in 2001 - more than 300 people turned up to see all the latest in local astronomy.

Every two or three years we hold in memory of one of our founder members and chairmen, the Kenneth Budd Memorial Lecture. So far we have held three well attended meetings. The first Kenneth Budd Memorial Lecture, in November 1998 was given by Prof. Sir Antony Hewish, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work on pulsars. His lecture was titled "Thirty Years of Pulsar Astronomy", and the second, in October 2000, when Ewen A. Whitaker FRAS gave a lecture titled "Fifty Years with Lunar Maps".

Please always try check the forum for details of the arrangements before the event.