The Nastro meetings will now take place in the function room
(side entrance) at The Trap Inn, Broomhill due to fire damage at
Hauxley Nature Reserve. To find out more about our new meeting
place please click here:
Dark Planets
Tonight there is no moon to see,
The clouds obscure the stars,
No guiding lights above us,
No distant gleam from Mars,
No Venus to excite us,
And make us dream of love,
No wondrous rings of Saturn,
To thrill us from above,
The giant planet Jupiter,
Is hidden from our view,
I wonder if they can see Earth,
Our planet of brilliant blue.
Poem by Matt Donoghue
Northumberland Astronomical Society was founded in January 2000 and has
approximately 25 regular members. We are a friendly, active society of
professional and amateur astronomers.
We welcome new members to
come and join us in our bi-monthly meetings and observing sessions where
you can learn and experience new things- you can take a short course in
astronomy, you can have access to a wide range of astronomy equipment,
participate in or lead sessions, have your own personal tour of the
night sky, join us in our famous observing night barbeques, meet people
with similar interests and make life long friends!
The Space Hop site is very cool, have a look...
Take a giant leap down to to Ashington library today...
Libraries all over the place are encouraging children to take
part in this summer's reading challenge, Space Hop!
The
Summer Reading Challenge encourages children to read six or more books
of their choice during the holidays with collectable incentives and
rewards, plus a certificate or medal for every child who completes the
Challenge. All children who complete the challenge will be entered into
a fantastic prize draw – first prize is a new bike!...This
summer's books follow a space theme! How exciting!!!
Ashington Library invited Nastro members to go along to their
'launch' (hehe) on Saturday 3rd of July 2010-so along went Adrian
Jannetta, Emma Maddison, Paul lewis and Malcolm Robinson.
We took globes and gadgets, prisms and planispheres ...and our
favourite Astronomy books. Paul Lewis took his solar telescope so
everybody got the chance to see just how fantastic the sun is! We were
lucky enough to see a couple of sun spots and filaments on the surface.
We had a slide show of 3d space images including a picture of Buzz
Aldrin on the moon, planets and moons, far away galaxies and our very
own lovely planet as seen from space!
Emma ran Astronomy Origami activities and had fun making paper
planispheres and constellation paper games.
There was a great turn out, about 40 people -19 children signed up to
the reading challenge on the day! Good luck kids!
We have been invited back to Ashington library again to do a session
with telescopes in the autumn when the dark nights cut in. They have
also kindly invited us to use the library for any future astronomy
events we'd like to run. Thank you for the generous donation to
our society Jenny!
Duncan Hunt, Head of Land Management for Northumberland Wildlife
Trust outside the burnt-out hide.
Jim's Office- looking in from the back
door, you can see the sink resting up against the wall on the left.
Photo by Malcolm Robinson
Until the building is rebuilt at Hauxley the Nastro meetings will take
place in the function room at
The Trap Inn
pub, North Broomhill. Sandra, the landlady has very kindly invited us to
use the room free of charge on the same dates and times, the second and
the last Thursday of the month starting at 7.30pm and ending 9.30pm.
Click
here to visit The Trap Inn website. L@@k, they have rooms available
to let! -great for those who'd like to observe late into the night but
don't fancy the long drive home!
Northumberland Wildlife
Trust’s Hauxley Visitor Centre has been destroyed by fire!
Members of Nastro were devastated to hear the news of
the fire at Hauxley Nature Reserve, our regular meeting place. Some of
us had to go down to see it to believe it.
The Fire Brigade was called to the site between 1am and 1.30am on Monday
28 June. It took the crew an hour to put out the blaze.
The fire is believed to
have started in the office area of the timber built centre and spread
rapidly throughout the rest of Centre. The building has been totally
gutted and will need to be demolished.
Mike Pratt, Northumberland Wildlife Trust Chief
Executive said: “This is horrendous blow for the Trust, its supporters
and the wildlife on the site which will undoubtedly have been
traumatised by the blaze and increased human activity.”
He continued: “Our immediate focus is in make the site
safe but we will then look to the future and the re-construction of this
important site that so many people enjoy; we will be launching a public
appeal to help us achieve this
.”
Donations to the New
Hauxley Visitor Centre Appeal can be made by calling the Trust on 0191
284 6884 or by post, sending a cheque made payable to Northumberland
Wildlife Trust Ltd to Garden House, St Nicholas Park, Gosforth,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 3XT marked New Hauxley Visitor Centre Appeal, or
by clicking on the Virgin logo below
Please mention the New
Hauxley Visitor Centre Appeal in the message box.
On Thusday 24th of June 2010 Oliver, our youngest NASTRO member, gave
us a fantastic talk on Terraforming Mars. He talked us through what we'd
need for to alter Mars so it would be habitable for us to live there in
the future when earth is no more. He told us exactly what we'd need to
do and when we should start the work to ensure it's ready on time. All
of Oliver's ideas for a self-sufficient ecological system were explained
with fantastic drawings which he had clearly spent a great deal of time
planning and creating. He also brought up some excellent discussion
points including the morality of such a project.
Thanks Oliver, you did an excellent job! I have two more
questions for you: Firstly, can I bring my three cats to Mars?, and
secondly, what do you plan to talk about next?
We have an active Yahoo
group which is our preferred way to communicate with other
members of the society and local astronomers outside of the
monthly meetings. Astronomy discussions and the organising
of observing sessions can be found here. We welcome you to join.
The most
recent posts from the discussion group are shown below: