Wessex AS - Badbury Rings, Moors Valley & Durlston

[BinocularSky]

We (Wessex AS) are doing 4 different events:

20 Jan: Moors Valley Country Park: Stargazing (20th January 2012) | Moors Valley Country Park & Forest

21 Jan: "Soup & Stars" at Badbury Rings: BBC - Things To Do: Soup & Stars (with NT and Weymouth AC -- could be fully booked)

28 & 29 Jan: Durlston Country Park: Poster

[BinocularSky]

260 people attended the event at Moors Valley Country Park last evening. So many that we had to do two sittings for the intro talk in the visitor centre, with the other half asking questions and chasing gaps in the cloud with some of us with observing kit in the picnic area.

Quote of the evening: "Oi, Dave, come over here! You'll learn more here in ten minutes than you did in 3 hours on the telly."

[BinocularSky]

The NT had limited this to 40 members of the public; I think most, if not all, turned up.

After welcome and soup in the Shepherd's Hut, we decamped to the observing area, where I gave a short introduction and invited the other astronomers present to introduce themselves. The sky was essentially overcast with a few transient gaps, through which we made fleeting glimpses of Venus, Jupiter and Sirius, and even more fleeting glimpses of the Pleiades and the Orion Nebula. We did our best to entertain and inform the members of public; the feedback was positive.

By 20:30, all but three members of public had left, so we packed up. Not entirely unsurprisingly, the sky cleared once we had all teh kit packed into cars, so I grabbed a 10x50 binocular and managed to show a few people the Pleiades, Orion Nebula and Perseus Double Cluster, before the clouds began to roll in again.

The NT staff, Rob Greenhalgh and Julie Mackenzie, who initiated this event, did their utmost to respond to our requests with respect to site set-up, and this helped to make it, from our perspective, an almost seamless event. They are keen to involve us in future events, and I am equally keen that we support this. Badbury Rings is not an ideal observing site (WAS used to have regular sessions there a dozen or so years ago) with the skyglow of Poole to the east, but has an atmosphere which is conducive to astronomy.

Thanks to Rob Hodgkinson (from Weymouth AC), Bruce Longstaff, Colin Taylor, Ian Galpin, Len Telford, Richard, & Rob Hatch (all Wessex AS), who supported this event.

[BinocularSky]

PS -- Should have added to the above that RobH co-organised this event. (Sorry, Rob)

[RobH]

No problem Stephen

It was a pleasure to meet you and the others from the Wessex society.

I'll be paying you a visit soon as it seems like a very good group.

Cheers

Rob

[BinocularSky]

Excellent! Look forward to seeing you again.