Guildford Cathedral Stargazing Event 20th Jan 2018

[Stu]

My little astro group were asked by Guildford Astronomy Society if we would like to support this Stargazing event at Guildford Cathedral, and we were hoping to take a few scopes down there. As is often the case though, the weather did not play ball and the observing part of the evening was cancelled.

I decided to pop down anyway as I was interested in the two talks being out on and some of the stands there. I parked on a side road below the cathedral and had somewhat steep walk up to the top, showing off my complete lack of fitness! Fortunately it was dark so no one saw me on my knees, trying to get my breath back before going in .

I arrived a little before 6, and had a about 45 mins to look around before the start of the talks. There were a good number of people there, I'm sure that there would have been far more if it had been clear but it was nice to see it well attended.

The GAS stand was excellent, some very good displays of the activities they do and images which the group had taken. There were also a few scopes on display, a dob and a couple of Meade SCTs, powered up so the punters could have a play. I particularly enjoyed listening to John Evans, an ex president of the club, talking someone through his lovely Milky Way mosaic image which was on display. I understand it was taken with medium format film, scanned and then stitched together. It was beautifully done, the Ha regions showing up very nicely including the NAN and right down into the centre of the Galaxy, well past the Lagoon Nebula. There was a very good keyed diagram showing all the objects too. Nice one GAS.

I spoke to the guys on the Surrey Satellite Technology stand too, having a good chat with a couple of them about what they do, the technology that goes into the satellites and also how they get launched. Very interesting.

There were also stands from the Commission for Dark skies and the University of Surrey Astrophysics department but I didn't speak to these chaps.

The two talks started at 6.30pm. The first was by Emma Osborne, billed as an astrophysicist and communicator. Her website is here:

http://www.emmalouiseosborne.com/

I did feel for both the speakers, as the acoustics in the cathedral may be good for singing but they are awful for speaking! They had a battle on their hands to be heard, but did a great job considering. The presentation control they were given also did not seem to be working so that made the advancing of slides a somewhat haphazard process. So, those things aside the speakers did well.

My only regret is that the Gravitational Waves talk was targeted at the younger audience. In that respect it hit the spot, but it is an area I find fascinating and would have loved it if Emma had been able to go into it a little more in depth. I will certainly have a look through her website and blogs.

Rgoer Davies was up next, and gave a very interesting talk on Galaxies and Black Holes. The challenges of the presentation environment made it a little hard to follow at times, but I certainly learned alot from it and felt it was worthwhile listening too. Roger has certainly done a huge amount of research into this area, and used some great kit to do so, including using Hubble for observations of star motions around the black hole at the centre of our universe. In fact, some of the most interesting slides were the ones showing the measurements and movements of the stars orbiting right at the centre of our galaxy. Fascinating.

I headed off fairly soon after the end of the talks, for an easier walk down the hill this time

A well worthwhile evening, glad I went. Shame about the weather, hopefully it will be kinder next time. Well done to all involved in arranging and running it.