Useful links

Next meeting

Annual General Meeting: Thursday 7th December 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

The AGM (ESAS members only) will take place after the talk.

Speaker: William Joyce

A Whistle-stop Tour of the Inner Planets.

william joyce

Chartered Physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a Local Astronomer & Astro Geologist. With an astrophysics degree, William has worked in space research at Leicester University with Earth remote sensing satellite instruments and in industry in laboratories, space software engineering, and later in aerospace systems engineering. William changed career in the mid-2000's and obtained a degree in Earth and Planetary science and followed this with university teaching and astronomy work (and teaching at Herstmonceux observatory).

 

Forthcoming meetings

Thursday 4th January 2024 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Peter Goodhew FRAS

Searching The Cosmos For Planetary Nebulae

Peter Goodhew

Peter will describe how he and his fellow team members go about discovering planetary nebula. He will explain some of the challenges in conducting such research, and how new discoveries become recognised and confirmed by the professional community. He will present many of the most beautiful and remarkable recent discoveries made by the team - including several that turned out to be quite unexpected!

Biography: Peter is part of an international team of amateurs collaborating in searching the cosmos for planetary nebula. His role in the team is to take deep images of potential discoveries. He does this using a remotely-operated dual rig located at a dark site in Spain. His images are frequently published in Astronomy Now magazine and many have received awards. He is a member of the British Astronomical Association, and has been elected as a Fellow of The Royal Astronomical Society.

 

 

Previous meetings

Thursday 2nd November 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Cancelled due to bad weather warning.

 

Thursday 5th October 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Ian Ridpath

Comets Ghostly wanderers in space

Comets appear in our skies from time to time like ghostly apparitions. In the past they were regarded as omens of disease, death, and destruction. Now we know that countless billions of them exist in the form of dirty snowballs at the edge of our Solar System, remnants from the formation of the Earth and other planets. We see them only on the rare occasions when they approach the Sun and heat up, releasing gas and dust to form a glowing head and tail. Recent space probe missions to comets, including the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, have given us astounding close-up pictures and first-hand information on their composition and structure. This talk will explain scientists’ efforts to understand where comets come from, what they are made of, how they were formed, and their possible role in the origin and development of life on Earth.

 

Thursday 7th September 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Dr David Whitehouse

The Alien Perspective

davidw

Subscriptions Due!

 

Thursday 6th July 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Chris Woodcock

Back to basics—Observing with different telescopes

 

Saturday 12th August 2023 from 6pm

Picnic and Perseids at our new Dark Site

This event will only be open to current ESAS members and their family and close friends
Details will be emailed to all current members

 

Thursday 1st June 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Steve Tonkin

Binoculars: How to Use and what we can see.

 

Thursday 4th May 2023 at the Manor House, Crowhurst Park

Speaker: William Joyce

Topic: Our Moon

Directions: The entrance to Crowhurst Park is on the A2100 between Hastings and Battle at the junction with Telham Lane, TN33 0SH. The meeting will be held in the Manor House, also labelled Crowhurst Park Leisure CLub on Google maps.

 

Thursday 6th April 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Jane Green FRAS

Look up, Live it, Love it!

Using the latest images and stunning audio visuals, Jane reveals the darkest wonders of the cosmos, sharing what inspires her and her audiences most … perspective, majesty and beauty on the grandest of scales. This powerful and insightful odyssey begins and ends with ‘nothing’. What could possibly fill the ‘space’ in between? Join Jane to find out, and become inspired to ‘Look Up, Live It and Love It’.

Jane is an elected Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS), and has presented and made guest appearances on many TV programmes, as well as presented at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and co-presented the Tour of the Universe show, described by Professor Chris Lintott as 'a first and a triumph'.

Her book, the Haynes Astronomy Manual, is still an international bestseller after several reprints and has been translated into several languages.

Jane Green, who has given lectures in many parts of the world, clearly appreciates that astronomy is a science open to everybody. Many new books on astronomy are now published every year, but I am emphatic in saying that Jane Green’s is outstanding. – Sir Patrick Moore, CBE FRAS

 

Thursday 2nd March 2023 at Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

Speaker: Graham Appleby PhD, FRAS.

Dr Graham ApplebyGraham Appleby joined the staff of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1968 as an undergraduate. He competed a BSc in Mathematics by day release at Brighton University. His first job was in the Solar Department, followed by several years working on the RGO Lunar Occultation project. Upon the start of the satellite laser ranging programme he transferred to working on satellite orbital analysis and prediction, gaining a PhD on the subject through the University of Aston, Birmingham. This work was aided by the transfer of RGO to Cambridge in 1990 and a consequent break from observation duties. From 2003 until retirement in 2019 he led the Space Geodesy Facility that remains in operation at Herstmonceux.

He is currently an honorary research associate with the facility and remains living near Cambridge. He is also a keen amateur astronomer, on a learning curve for astrophotography.

 

Thursday 2nd February 2023 : Special Meeting Called

Steve Cunnington

This is an important meeting - Details will be emailed to Members

Volunteers have come forward to form a new committee and take ESAS into 2023! In order to comply with the constitution your outgoing committee hereby give notice of a Special General Meeting at which the new committee can be formally elected.

The SGM meeting will be followed by a talk from David Rees - Subject TBC

Important: All Members please attend.

 

This meeting will be held at the Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club.

 

Thursday 3rd November 2022 : AGM followed by TBC

 

williamjoyce2


This meeting will be held at the Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club

 

Thursday 6th October 2022: Greg Smye-Rumsby : "Myths and Illusions"

Greg Smye-Rumsby
This meeting will be held at the Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club.

Greig agreed at short notice to give us a talk this month - thank you. This is his 2nd talk for us this year, but being one of our favourite speakers this can only be a blessing. This month's talk is "Myths and Illusions". Greig rarely gives out much information on his talks beforehand so that there is more of a surprise, but they are always excellent. A talk not to be missed.

 

Thursday 1st September 2022 : Special Meeting Called - Members Only

Steve Cunnington

This is an important meeting - Details will be emailed to Members

This meeting is to discuss how ESAS can/will go forward in the future. Furter details will be added here and an agenda will be emailed to members late August ahead of the meeting.

Important: All Members please attend.

This event will only be open to current ESAS members and entrance will be free.


This meeting will be held at the Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club.

 

Monthly [Sept 2018] Observing (Sky Diary)

Click here to see the attached is the slide show from the September meeting presented by Andy. 

 

 

 

Introduction 

The February 2017 meeting presentation by Mary McIntyre, her second talk on Astro Photography, covered quite a lot of detail. Mary has kindly written up some notes from this session. Click on the links at the bottom of the each of the following sections.   

Photographing The Night Sky: An Introduction to Astrophotography

  • Basic equipment you need
  • Get familiar with your camera
  • Settings
  • Rough guide
  • Shooting the photos
  • shooting the constellations
  • Shooting Conjunctions
  • Shooting The Milky Way
  • Shooting Star Trails
  • Shooting Satellites
  • Shooting Meteors
  • Shooting Aurora
  • Shooting Noctilucent Clouds
  • Optical Phenomena
  • Solar Optical Phenomena
  • Shooting Lightning
  • Shooting With a Zoom Lens
  • Shooting With a Bridge Camera
  • Tips for using a Nikkon Coolpix (from David Blanchflower)
  • Tips for using a Canon SX50 (from Angela Garrod)
  • Tips for using a Lumix (from Dr. Steve Wainright)
  • Shooting With Camera Attached to Telescope
  • Afocal Photography
  • Eyepiece Projection
  • Prime Focus Photography
  • Prime Focus Lunar Photography
  • Prime Focus Solar Photography
  • Shooting Solar Images
  • Prime Focus Deep Sky Photography
  • Stacking (Registax & Autostakkert and Deep Sky Stacker)
  • Calibration Frames
  • Basic Processing
  • Basic Processing; What Do I Need To Do?
  • Advanced Processing
  • Other powerful image processing programmes
  • Planetary Imaging With a DSLR
  • Storage/Sharing
  • To contact Mary

Click here for the Document Download

 

Improve Your Astrophotography Summary Notes

These notes will talk you through how to get started with image stacking and then onto basic Photoshop processing Image stacking is the process used to layer multiple images of the same thing on top of each other using computer software. This increases the signal to noise ratio and will allow you to build up much longer total exposure time which will bring out much more detail than you’ll get in one image

  • Shooting the photos
  • Calibration Frames
  • Image Stacking
  • Autostakkert! 2 Basics
  • Stacking Solar/Lunar Images
  • Stacking Planetary Images
  • Registax 6 for RGB Realignment & Wavelet Sharpening
  • Deep Sky Stacker Basics:
  • Basic Photoshop Processing
  • Levels and Curve Adjustments
  • RC Astrotools
  • Using a Layer Mask
  • Other Image Processing Software
  • Software Downloads
  • Further Reading
  • To contact Mary

Click here for the Document Download

 

The Sun The Moon Weather
 
 
 
Sky Map Astro-Calendar Astronomy Now Almanac
(weekly update)
Planetarium
Latest Sky Map from skymaps.com

For more observing information go to the "Observer's Page"

3rd January 2013 Peter Gill talk entitled 'Solar Activity' also Andy Lawes will be giving a tribute talk about our Honary Patron Sir Patrick Moore.

7th February 2013 Greg Smye-Rumsby The title of my talk will be 12756. As usual my talks are secrets so you will NOT know what the talks is about until I give it - just a little quirk of mine. 

7th March 2013 Bob Mizon  - Ten targets for light polluted Astronomers

4th April 2013 William Joyce (Herstmonceaux Science Centre) Geologist and Astronomer. His talk is entitled Extrasolar Astrobiology.

 2nd May 2013 David Mannion (Dr)

6th June 2013 - Dr Chris North
TV Astronomer, broadcaster and author. Chris has been interested in all things space-related since he was young, and was writing school projects on rockets and space missions from junior school onwards. Skip forward a decade, and he was an undergraduate studying Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, still with a keen appetite for physics and astronomy. Despite almost being converted into a geologist, I decided to stick to my roots and stayed with astrophysics. My involvement continued after I'd completed my PhD and moved to Cardiff University, where I work on two astronomical satellites: the European Space Agency's Herschel and Planck missions. I do a fair amount of public outreach for those missions - which are producing wonderful and exciting results - both in public and schools, and to both students and teachers."

July 4th, 2013 Members meeting where we have 4 short talks by members;

Our Line up; 

  • St Richards students talking on "Astronomy for Visually Impaired"
  • Richie Jarvis - Talk entitled 'The Robots of Mars'
  • Peter Bolwell - Talk entitled 'The Men who Went to the Moon'
  • Andy Lawes will be taking the meeting and finishing off with our Sky Diary and notices.

August 3rd, 2013 ESAS Star-B-Q on St Mary's Lawns (No Meeting this month)

 

September 5th, 2013 Paul L Money FRAS, FBIS

An astronomer based in Lincolnshire, England, Paul is well known for his animated talks, he is the reviews editor of the BBC Sky at Night magazine. Paul broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio Lincolnshire and was awarded the 'Eric Zucker' award for 2002/2003 for contributions to Astronomy by the Federation of Astronomical Societies.

October 3rd, 2013 Dr Stewart Clark returns to give us another thrilling installment in his series of talks "The Day without Yesterday".

Stuart Clark is a widely read astronomy journalist whose career is devoted to presenting the complex world of astronomy to the general public. Stuart holds a first class honours degree and a PhD in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers and is the cosmology consultant for 'New Scientist'. In 2000 'The Independent' placed him alongside Stephen Hawking and the Astronomer Royal, Professor Sir Martin Rees, as one of the 'stars' of British astrophysics teaching.

Saturday 12th 10am - 5:30pm  BAA Out of London Back to Basics workshop/talks hosted by ESAS at St Mary's school, Wrestwood Road Bexhill.

 


 

November 7th, 2013 Greg Smye-Rumsby talk on the subject of Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. NB: Dr Francisco Diego planned November talk has been postponed.

December 5th, 2013 Professor Robert Iliffe Sir Isaac Newton" ~ 

Professor Iliffe is Professor of Intellectual History and the History of Science, the University of Sussex

 

Find us

Meetings:
Egerton Park Indoor Bowls Club,
Egerton Road,
Bexhill, East Sussex,
TN39 3HL

 

May Meeting:
Venue to be announced

 

Meetings are held on the first Thursday of each month from 8pm to 10pm

Cookies make it easier for us to provide you with our services. With the usage of our services you permit us to use cookies.
X