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That is clear and succinct. Please. No more drama.

Talk by Dr Paul Dalgarno, MPhys PhD CPhys, Associate Professor of Physics at Heriot Watt University . Black holes remain one of the most fascinating and intriguing phenomenon of the universe. On the one hand they are conceptually amazingly simple, on the other we still know very little about the detailed complexity around them. This talk will discuss the history of our understanding of black holes, some of the main properties of them and touch on some of the deeper questions connected to them. Regular meetings are held monthly and are open to members and non-members. Admission is free and visitors are always welcome. Also at our meetings: What's in the night sky this month News of what's happening in the world of astronomy and space Occasional member presentations Tea/coffee and chat afterwards View the calendar event

At around 7am, the waning crescent Moon will be at 14 degrees above the horizon and between Venus and Jupiter. Given some clear skies, this should make quite a spectacle. The 25 day old moon will be 17.8% illuminated, and about 4 degrees from Jupiter and 4.5 degrees from Venus. Well worth a look in binos or a widefield photo opportunity. View the calendar event

Talk by Dr Andrew Dennis, Director of Product Management at Andor Technology. When we think of Astronomy we think of beautiful Astrophotograpy images, but behind the scenes there are usually a vast array of “technical” cameras which ensure the telescope remains aligned, perform deep Astronomical analysis or produce details of the chemical composition of far off worlds. To make a Hollywood analogy, these cameras could be considered to be the Screenplay writers, Producers, Visual effects engineers of the Astronomy world, without these cameras the “lead actors” simply couldn’t perform. Regular meetings are held monthly and are open to members and non-members. Admission is free and visitors are always welcome. Also at our meetings: What's in the night sky this month News of what's happening in the world of astronomy and space Occasional member presentations Tea/coffee and chat afterwards View the calendar event

Talk by Dr Aleks Scholz, University of St Andrews. The talk will give a brief overview of the star and planet formation process and detail the scientific goals of our citizen science project which monitors nearby young star clusters with amateur telescopes. We will show some of our recent results and explain how to participate in our research. View the calendar event

A new moon so good conditions if the skies allow. Mars and Neptune will be separated by only 8 arcminutes so could make a colourful double in the eyepiece. Note: it may also be a good opportunity to look for Comet 46P/Wirtanen. View the calendar event

Zoltan at 365 Astronomy has requested we post this response from him to criticisms raised by MARS1960: ---------- re. MARS1960's feedback Next day comes and nice man delivers box, open it up and find that it doesn't fit my ED80 why wasn't i asked what refractor i had as it may not fit customer mentioned that he ordered this same focuser from a different shop, but they didn't have it in stock, so they had to refund his order. I feel the customer was biased against us as It seems it wasn't an issue for the customer that that other shop didn't advise him that he might need an additional adapter. Also, I've talked to two shop managers and described to them the situation without mentioning customer's name (data protection!) and both shop managers said that if a customer wanted this kind of product next day they would never consider that he didn't do his research. Also, the product description clearly indicated that there are various optional adapters available for the refractor version that the customer ordered and if the customer read the description, he would most likely understand that he would need one, hence he would have asked us and we'd be more than happy to help to find the right adapter. When we first talked to the customer, the only question we had was whether we had it in stock and whether we could dispatch same day. Unfortunately we've failed to fulfil our promise to dispatch it on the same day due to an unforeseen circumstance. (We've apologised for this and dispatched it with one day delay.) My wife who worked in a care home in the morning could not return in time as she got flat tyre. She deals with Royal Mail dispatches so we could not dispatch everything that we planned. Rang again and spoke to man (not Zoltan) asked first why he didn't dispatch my promised order, i was brusquely told i don't do orders only emails I think the problem was that my colleague picked up the phone and as he was not in on Wednesday he was not aware of what happened to this order... as far as I could hear their conversation, customer was not exactly nicely addressing him which took my colleague by quite a surprise as we are not used to such a tone. I now have to send the item back at a cost of £11.00 for insured special delivery, Customer asked to refund the return postage as well, although according to distant sales regulations we are not obliged to do so as there must be equal levels of losses when a customer returns an item. Never-the-less we've refunded the full value of his order and the £11 return postage as well. i am utterly flabbergasted by the response i got from Zoltan and his colleague. I was trying to direct the conversation so that we resolve the issue, i.e. find the necessary adapter for the customer, but it didn't seem to be important for the customer, and he ended up shouting at me, which we've never had before in the 10 years of our business. I found his verbal abuse unacceptable and this was probably the first time I had to put down the phone before the end of a conversation. As far as I can see, it did cost us a bit more than £20 (whilst not a penny to the customer) that he didn't read the product description or not carefully enough. This happens a lot to customers and we always try to be understanding and helpful to find a solution (as many of them would certainly confirm), but this was a first time when such a simple issue turned into some kind of psychological warfare. I guess I would probably be also shouting if a life-saving treatment for my family member didn't arrive in time, but this was merely about an optional telescope adapter, so I'm really at loss here. Won't sound too scientific, but I guess I could only blame it on a bad alignment of the planets. Zoltan, 365Astronomy

BlueAstra has received a number of responses, positive and negative, so we will close this thread If anyone has something else to say regarding their experience with Altair Astro they are welcome to post a review in the Supplier Reviews board.

Any LAS members who can help out with equipment please let us know. all tickets for the public available from, the 1st october View the calendar event

19:30 @ The Allendale Centre, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS View the calendar event

For members only View the calendar event

Talk by Dr Alan Penny, University of St Andrews Free admission and visitors always welcome. The Primary Objectives And Purposes Of METI International Are To: Conduct scientific research and educational programs in Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI) and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Promote international cooperation and collaboration in METI, SETI, and astrobiology. Understand and communicate the societal implications and relevance of searching for life beyond Earth, even before detection of extraterrestrial life. Foster multidisciplinary research on the design and transmission of interstellar messages, building a global community of scholars from the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts. Research and communicate to the public the many factors that influence the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe, with a special emphasis on the last three terms of the Drake Equation: (1) the fraction of life-bearing worlds on which intelligence evolves, (2) the fraction of intelligence-bearing worlds with civilizations having the capacity and motivation for interstellar communication, and (3) the longevity of such civilizations. Offer programs to the public and to the scholarly community that foster increased awareness of the challenges facing our civilization’s longevity, while encouraging individual and community activities that support the sustainability of human culture on multigenerational timescales, which is essential for long-term METI and SETI research. View the calendar event

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Oct 9 ‘Life after Skylark’ by Roger D Cooper, formerly of Leicester University View the calendar event