Society For Popular Astronomy

[Geoff Barnes]

I was doing a bit of Googling of astro images as you do, and came across an image that had been posted on this Astro Forum...https://www.popastro.com/main_spa1/?sid=98dd0a491f4ad3fb9c783c45718311e0.

Does anyone on SGL ever visit this site? It's forum doesn't seem to be all that active and certainly doesn't rival SGL in any way.

It got me wondering how many other astro sites and forums there are out there. SGL would easily be the biggest (and best) in the UK.

[NGC 1502]

 

Indeed, SGL is probably the top UK based astronomy forum, and it’s free 👍 this is a great resource and ideal for those who would otherwise find being a member of a local club difficult.  In my area there’s quite a few who cannot get along to my club, by the time they are home from work, eaten etc they quite simply do not have the time to come.  Shift work and family commitments are common.

I used to belong to the Society for Popular Astronomy.  Although they cater for beginners some of their members do advanced stuff so it’s a great organisation, always friendly and welcoming.  But the forum is underused as mentioned.

Cloudy Nights is great, but occasionally some of the posts can at times get very argumentative indeed 😳

Ed. 

[Les Ewan]

I admit I don't use astro forums as much as I used too. I did visit the SPA  forum regularly at one time and had a direct link to its forum on a shortcut on my laptop,but this now only brings me to the SPA home page,with no mention of a forum(that I could see) on its links. I just assumed that it had closed.

PS

As an aside I used to be a member of the SPA back in the 70's when it was the JAS (Junior Astronomical Society )and the three monthly magazine was called Hermes.

I remember the reason for the name changes was to avoid confusion as the society is open to all ages not just juniors and Hermes was also the name of medical journal at the time.