The annual Bannau Bycheiniog Dark Sky Festival celebrating the beautiful Dark Sky Reserve is on at the Mountain Visitor’s Centre on Saturday 20th September. There is a full and exciting programme and tickets can be purchased at the following link:
Author: aberobs
Next meeting of Abergavenny Astronomy Society, Monday 28th April
The next meeting of Abergavenny Astronomy Society is on Monday 28th April at 7:30 pm in the Hen and Chickens, Flannel Street, Abergavenny. Nick Busby will give a talk on the Moon.
The Moon plays a hugely important part in our lives, it has great cultural importance- it affects our calendar; we have just celebrated Easter for example and that is a moveable feast whose dates depend on the phase of the Moon. It stabilises the Earth’s rotation and it gives us the tides. It is unique in our solar system as the largest satellite relative to its host planet and was an integral part of the way our Earth was formed and has developed. In this talk we will examine some of these aspects in detail to gain an appreciation of just how important it is.
All are welcome, no knowledge required just an enquiring mind.
Next meeting of Abergavenny Astronomy Society is on the 24th March at 7:30pm
It is spring already with the vernal equinox on 2025 20th Thursday and to astronomers that heralds the galaxy season. At this time of year we wave goodbye to the planets as they progressively set in the twilight. The “realm of the galaxies” is of course in the constellation of Virgo. To mark this, on Monday 24th March, Andrew Lohfink will give a talk on “Galaxies, their discovery, classification and observation.” The meeting starts at 7:30pm in the Hen and Chickens, Flannel street, Abergavenny. All are welcome whether a member or not.
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.
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.
Bannau Brycheiniog featured with local astronomers on ITV X
ITVX has just posted an item on their website ITVX, you can view it on the link below. Some of us went along to the Libanus Mountain Centre to extol the virtues of the Dark Sky Reserve. Please feel free to share the link as the more publicity the DS Reserve can get the better as it helps people to understand the threats of light pollution.