For anyone in North Yorkshire, Cleveland, Durham and Darlington etc

[EA2007]

This message is to any StarGazersLounge members situated in the 'North East', who also have a Facebook account.

I have set up a "North Yorkshire Astronomical Society" group on the social network Facebook.

I have done this primarily for two reasons:

1) There is no Astronomy Society for North Yorkshire (apart from Scarborough and Filey & Cleveland and Darlington) in the real world as far as I know, and there are no Astronoical Societies of any kind for the North East on Facebook.

2) Facebook is becoming very sucessful at promoting groups and societies.

Now I know that NY is the largest county in England (being larger than Cornwall and Devon combined) and there is a very large area involved and I know that there are societies in Lancashire and Leeds, along with Sheffield and Hull. But this is for the top end of the Yorkshire counties, where I feel a society for astronomy is lacking.

The Facebook group is only in its infancy (4 members so far...) but I hope that it will expand as amateur and professional astronomers join. The group is open to anyone from Cleveland, Darlington, Durham, infact I hold no bars as to the persons that can join.

Hopefully the group will migrate from the virtual to the real world and observation nights can occur.

I hope that anyone who reads this and is in the North Yorkshire vicinity joins

Search for 'North Yorkshire Astronomical Society' in the Facebooks Group listings.

[darlingtonskies]

hey im in darlington.

you had any luck in getting more people.

what is the facebook group called

[astroeddie]

Been trying to organise an observing session for 10 years now through various forums.

Actually there is a BIG astro group up here.... CADAS.

Cleveland and Darlington Astro Society. They meet at Thorpe Thewles observatory 1 night each month.

In the mid 90's my brother and I went up, sat beside a very well renowned Planetary Director for the BAA. He was passing around sketches. Asked me what scope I had. I'd only used a 60mm Tasco at the time. He swiftly took the binder off me with a grunt and moved on.

I've been a dozen or so times. Things have changed and its a good place to meet people. There's lots of people in Darlo that observe.

I've been observing since 1996. And in all that time only ever been to one observing session with someone else..... Dalby Forrest 2009.

If anyone does fancy a obs sess before end of March (2010) when I have to go back to sea for 15 weeks, do PM.

Eddie H

[David Galvin]

The following list, for Yorkshire, is from The Federation of Astronomical Societies website. Are any of these near to you?

Federation of Astronomical Societies - Member Societies

Yorkshire

• Batley and Spenborough Astronomical Society
  
• Blackburn Leisure Astronomy Society
  
• Bradford Astronomical Society
  
• Doncaster Astronomical Society
  
• East Riding Astronomers
  
• Harrogate Astronomical Society
  
• Hebden Bridge Astronomical Society
  
• Huddersfield Astronomical & Philosophical Society
  
• Hull & East Riding Astronomical Society
  
• Leeds Astronomical Society
  
• Mexborough & Swinton Astronomical Society
  
• Scarborough & Ryedale Astronomical Society
  
• Sheffield Astronomical Society
  
• West Yorkshire Astronomical Society
  
• Whitby & District Astronomical Society
  
• York Astronomical Society
  

[Abernus]

I just moved from gateshead to Bowburn and was thinking today that it would be good to meet others in the Durham area. I am fairly new to all this and think it would be good to meet and hopefully learn a bit more.

BTW I just searched for this group on FB and couldn't find it.

[EA2007]

Hello,

this is a blast from the past. this thread was started way back in 2007. thanks for reviving it.

Ah, so you've moved into NY eh? cool cool. I'm near Northallerton, there are a few places to go for dark skies around here. I know that the Moors and the Dales are the best places to go but even near town the MW is visible throughout the year : )

I know there's a society at Durham Uni and one for Darlington. Though the LP from Teesside and Durham may not be that good for observing.

hmm, facebook? I think I removed that page as I was promoting (at the time) North Yorkshire Astronomical Society. When it came to it then I was advised that a society preferably needs some real-world venue for hosting meetings etc and not purely be an internet based scheme.

I thus changed the naming to North Yorkshire Astronomy and worked on a webpage for a year. I unfortunately gave up work on the website in early 2009 due to work commitments...and a bit of laziness. Its still alive and well though and kicking around in first place on Google at northyorksastro.googlepages.com

News pages are out of date but the factual content is pretty much timeless. I had Google Analytics attached to the site and in the months I had it working I received over 800 hits from all across the world, with the average time spent on the site at 4 minutes. That impressed me a lot, usually people just browse a page or site for a few secs and click off, 4 minutes of browsing on one site that isn't a forum or long-text site is good.