November:-  The next meeting of AAS will be on the 28^th, the 4^th Monday of the month, at 7:30pm.
The proposed topic, from a suggestion at our September meeting, will be “Dark Matter”.
If you have any questions or answers or other thoughts on this elusive Matter do come along and share them with the rest of us.  We are all operating in the Dark so any and all contributions are welcomed!
Further details will be posted nearer the date.

December:-  As the 4^th Monday falls between Christmas and the New Year we have decided to miss out this month.

January:-  Our first 2023 meeting is scheduled for the 23^rd of January.  This session will continue with the “Astronomy Basics” theme.  The topic will be decided in the New Year.
If anyone has a specific subject they would like to be covered please let me or Nick know, email addresses below.

All sessions are upstairs in the Hen & Chicks, Flannel St, Abergavenny NP7 5EG, starting at 7:30pm

Everyone is welcome.

Kevin: webmaster@abergavennyas.org.uk         Nick: observing@abergavennyas.org.uk

Yesterday’s meeting at the Hen & Chicks went well.  We had a general discussion as to interests and how to take AAS forward.
There was support for the “Back to Basics” series, including basic astrophotography.  A number of topics that would be of interest were also highlighted, eg latest NASA/ESA missions, black holes, neutron stars, exo-plants etc.  It was also suggested that trips out would be of interest.
A couple of people also expressed a willingness to host an informal chat.
I have put a pdf copy of last night’s notes on the download page ( HERE ).  These are my notes so please excuse any errors that you spot or any missed attributions!

Next meeting is scheduled for the Monday 24^th October.  Notification with details will be posted nearer the date. Many thanks for everyone’s support and it is good to see that there is an interest in keeping the Abergavenny meetings going.

Great news about the resumption of in-person meetings of the AAS.  I will be there having my pint (or two).  Looking forward to meeting up with old and new faces.

In the meantime next week, 7:30pm on the 15^th September, there is a lecture at Cardiff University on “Gravitational Waves”, free tickets via eventbrite (website)

There will be a couple of us from AAS going – so maybe see you there?

Bob Wright (Usk) gave an interesting talk on the JWST back in January.  In case you wanted a little more on the current situation I came across a video on the “Launch Pad Astronomy” channel on YouTube.

It’s entitled “How James Webb orbits nothing”.  It goes into the theory behind how the JWST can orbit an empty spot in space – just in case you ever wondered.  It also emphasises the task that is faced by the JW team and the number of variables that they have to take into account.
A couple of interesting points from the video are that the telescope elliptical orbit around L2 takes about 6 months and, it’s up to twice the size of the moon’s orbit around Earth (JW orbit 250,000 to 832,000 cf the Moon 360,000 to 400,000km).  The other point was that it isn’t actually orbiting L2 but a point slightly on the Earth side of L2.  Reasons are in the video.
You can access it at this  LINK .

Also, the “Where is Webb” website, HERE, explains how the first photons have been received of star (HD84406, some 260 l.yrs distant in Ursa Major) although, as the mirrors are not yet aligned, the picture isn’t much to look at.

NASA, ESA and CSA (the Canadians) got the Christmas present they wanted, a successful launch of the James Webb ST. and now a successful deployment.

It is now on it’s way to the L2 Lagrange Point, some 1.5 million km (almost 1 million  miles) from the earth.
You can follow the telescopes progress on the NASA “Where is Webb” page <HERE>.

It’s December 2021 and the final moment in a saga, started in 1996, to build and launch a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.  The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is due to be hoisted aloft by an Arian 5 rocket from French Guiana on the 22^nd.  It will then take some 6 months to deploy before any science can be done.
It is a very complex engineering project and there are a host of things that can go wrong during its deployment, so fingers crossed.
JWST is an infra red telescope covering the wavelengths  0.6 to 28.3 µm, cf the visual range of 0.38 to 0.76 µm.  This will enable it to look back to the era of the origin of stars and galaxies.

The main objectives of the JWST mission are:-
1)  To investigate the light from the dawn of the universe some 13 billion years ago;
2)  To study the formation of the first galaxies;
3)  To look for the first generation stars and better understand the formation of stars and their planetary systems;
4)  To study planetary systems in the Milky Way and potentially analyse the atmospheres of and look for signs of life from these planets.

In order to protect the instrument from the Sun, earth and moon, to get its operating temperature as low as possible, and increase its sensitivity, it is being placed at the Lagrange L2 position, some 1 million miles away in line with the sun and earth, with a huge parasol to protect it.  If anything goes wrong then that is it, it cannot be serviced like the HST was!

Further information is at the following LINKs:  NASA, ESA and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Quanta Magazine has also just published an article, at LINK, and there is a video at LINK.