Although the weather forecast is not very promising for tomorrow morning and the solar eclipse, a few of us will be in Bailey Park, Abergavenny with proper solar scopes from 9:30am should anyone want to view the eclipse but does not have suitable equipment. As it lasts for over an 1 hour and a half we may get a few gaps in the clouds with a bit of luck.

There will be a partial solar eclipse visble from Abergavenny, weather permitting, on the 25th of October from around 10:08 to 11:45. If you wish to observe it under no circumstances look at the Sun with unprotected eyes, only use equipment specifically designed for the purpose. You can also look at the reflection of the Sun in a bucket of water

The next meeting of the Astronomy Society will be first floor in the Hen and Chickens Pub, Abergavenny at 19:30 on the 24th October. The subject will be “Observing the planets for absolute beginners”. With Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune well placed this is an ideal time to get out and observe the planets. You can find most of them without any optical aid but can see interesting features with binoculars and fascinating views with telescopes. This talk will show you how to find them and the best ways to observe them.

All welcome, both members and non-members.

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.