After the usual run of society notices, Mike McRoberts gave us his observing notes and astrophotography challenges for July. Tony Buick gave us a talk about Tardigrades and the TARDIS experiment, which was launched on the Russian FOTON-M3 mission in September 2007. Tardigrades are very small animals which can take on an extremely hardy form to survive prolonged periods in hostile environments, and then "come back to life" once conditions become more amicable again. The TARDIS mission exposed some unfortunate tardigrades to the vacuum and radiation of Low Earth Orbit, and then returned them to Sweden. We're waiting to hear whether they survived the experience. Tony brought along a microscope and some live tardigrades for members to see.

After coffee Mark Shelley gave us a talk about using digital SLRs for astrophotography. This included tips on how to get images into sharp focus, and on "modding" a digital SLR to remove the manufacturer's IR and UV filter in order to improve its H-alpha response. He illustrated the effects with a number of astrophotographs, some of which can be found in the Society's gallery.

Mike McRoberts then brought the evening to a close with a talk about the Phoenix Lander, which has (at the time of the meeting) been on the surface of Mars for 31 Martian days. Reports from this mission will be well worth watching out for in the next few months.

Conrad Malin-Smith gave us a talk on The Message of Starlight. In it he explained just how much it was possible to determine by examining the spectra of stars and nebulae. The relative brightnesses of emission and absorbtion lines reveal a great deal, not only about composition, but also about temperatures, masses, and relative motions of the objects being observed.

The Society's first meeting at the new High Elms Nature Centre was the occasion of Lucie Green's talk about the "Latest Results from the Hinode and STEREO Space Missions". She began by explaining the structure of the Sun and went on to describe the various phenomena that could be observed on it. Having described sunspots, filaments, prominences, flares, and coronal mass ejections, she then showed us images from Hinode and STEREO. The Hinode mission carries three main cameras to give a wide spectral view of the Sun from the visible all the way to X-rays. It produces a much more complete image of the Sun's observable regions with excellent detail of the magnetic fields. The STEREO mission is a pair of spacecraft which have been observing the Sun from different directions. This has produced some fine views which we were able to view using stereo glasses to get a most unusual impression of the Sun's activity. Some of the images and videos may be found on the STEREO website .

The Society Annual General Meeting was held at Red Hill School, Chislehurst. At the meeting it was announced that we would be returning to High Elms Nature Centre for our March meeting, so this would be our last meeting at Red Hill School.

After the AGM had been concluded, our Chairman Jim Mehta gave us a talk about his recent visit to Siding Spring, the home of the Anglo-Australian Telescope. He was given a special guided tour of the observatory site by Fred Watson.

On this clear evening just after full moon Tom Boles gave us an interesting talk on "Discovering Supernovae". He began by explaining the differences between Type 1a supernovae (which happen when a white dwarf star which is accumulating material from a companion star grows beyond its maximum mass) and all the other types (which happen when massive stars run out of readily fusable fuel and suffer a core collapse). He then, after a short diversion explaining how supernova discoveries don't happen, went on to explain the procedures involved in finding potential supernovae, testing them to determine whether they are genuinely new, and then reporting them if they pass the tests. Finding candidates is largely a matter of imaging a sufficient number of distant galaxies and then comparing the images with reference master images looking for differences. Collecting images is a process that can be made very much easier by using robotic telescopes with good computer control. The trickier part is searching for significant differences, and them making sure that the differences can't be explained by anything other than a new supernova. Tom described the many ways differences might appear on images of  galaxy, from CCD errors and cosmic rays via variable stars and emission nebulae, to asteroids and artificial satellites. He then briefly mentioned some of the telescopes that have been used to confirm discoveries he has made. The list included the Keck telescopes, the Hubble Spase Telescope, and the Hale 200-inch telescope on Mt. Palomar. He ended his talk by describing some of the up-coming professional competition, and pointed out that though these will probably find a great many supernovae, they'll tend to find them in the fainter and more distant galaxies, so there'll still be a place for amateur supernova patrols for many years to come.