Next meeting of the Abergavenny Astronomy Society, Monday 24th February

The next meeting of the Society will be in the Hen and Chickens, Abergavenny on Monday 24th February at 7:30 pm. In this meeting Nick Busby will present on the subject of “Dark Matter”.

Dark matter is one of those enigmas in astronomy; there is plenty of evidence it exists, in fact if it doesn’t exist we need to come up with a bunch of other explanations for some real observational anomalies. The trouble is nobody knows what it is, yes of course there are plenty of theories and also alternative ideas – but none have a scrap of physical evidence to support them.

In this talk we will look into why dark matter has been invoked in the first place, the evidence it exists and some of the alternatives.

First Meeting of 2025 is on Monday 27th January

First Meeting of 2025 is on Monday 27th January

Usual venue, upstairs in the Hen & Chickens, Flannel St. starting at 7:30pm.

The topic for the evening is

Gravitational Waves

Gravitational wave GIF

We will cover:-
A bit of the history of Observing,
A bit of GW History,
A bit of theory,
Recent Developments and
The future

Everyone welcome, members, strangers, indeed anyone with an interest in our Universe.
No knowledge necessary, just a curious mind.  Come along with questions, theories or to just listen.

November Meeting – Pale Blue Dot

At the last meeting in November, where Andrew gave a very interesting talk on Saturn, the topic of the Pale Blue Dot was raised.
This refers to a photograph taken by Voyager 1 on the 14th February, 1990 from beyond the planet Neptune, a distance of 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles).  On the photo the Earth was less than 1 pixel.
In case anyone is interested the passage that Carl Sagan wrote in 1994 to go with the picture is on YouTube (HERE).  I have also put a copy on the download page (HERE)

Meetings update – December

At the last meeting the general feeling was that the next scheduled meeting (23rd) was too close to Christmas.

It was therefore decided to cancel the December meeting.

The next meeting will therefore be on the 27th January. Further details will be posted nearer the date.

So, enjoy the Christmas and New Year holiday season and hope to see everyone in 2025

Happy Christmas & a Good New Year
Nadolig Llawen  –  Blwyddyn Newydd Dda

Next meeting of the Society Monday 25th November 2024

The next meeting of the Society will be on Monday 25th November in the Hen and Chickens, Abergavenny. The meeting will start as usual at 7:30pm. Everyone welcome, members, strangers, indeed anyone with an interest in astronomy of any level of knowledge. Remember the old saying “a stranger is simply a member that hasn’t joined yet” – or something like that!

Andrew Lohfink will give another of his insightful talks on solar system objects, this time it will be all about the planet Saturn.