NASTRO -

Nastro News

Promoting astronomy education and encouraging people to look up since the year 2000

Dark Skies for Northumberland

NASTRO are going to be running a series of events around Northumberland in partnership with Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to promote the importance for dark skies. Events will be held in local schools and various other locations. If you are interested in us visiting your venue to share our passion for the dark night sky please email emma@nastro.org.uk to arrange it. We do all outreach events free and donations are greatly appreciated.

It once was a source of wonder but now half of the entire planet’s natural environment—the star-filled nights of just a few years ago are vanishing in a yellow haze. Human-produced light pollution not only ruins our view of the stars; poor lighting threatens astronomy, disrupts ecosystems, affects human sleep patterns and wastes energy.

If you would like to know more about what we are doing and to support us 'like' our Dark Skies Facebook page:

The photograph above was taken by Malcolm Robinson at our Hauxley Observatory and it shows the constellation Orion rising out of the light pollution from Ashington.

Astronomy Concepts in a Nutshell

27th September 2011

Nastonomers are currently working on a new exciting video project. We will be making a series of videos called Astronomy Concepts in a Nutshell.

These videos will cover the key things you need to know about an astronomy subject in only a couple of minutes!

Have a look to see how we are getting on >>>

NASTRO observing session at Hauxley Nature Reserve on September 14th 2011. Seven stars of The Plough in the background!

Total Lunar Eclipse: 15th June 2011

A few of us went down to The Scars to watch the Total Lunar Eclipse. We didn't get to see the moon until the eclipse was over!
We still had a lovely time cloud watching though.

Stargazing Live 2011

To find out more about what we did at our Stargazing Live events and see more photographs from the evenings please click here.

At the start of the year NASTRO ran some Stargazing live events and what a fabulous time we all had! We were lucky to have 2 clear nights out of 4 and many people had the opportunity to look through a telescope for the very first time. The BBC2 Star gazing Live created an opportunity for us to do what we love best, enthusing people about a subject we all love. We had over 150 guest over the the 2 weekends and 16 of them joined our society so they could be more involved in what we do, to have access to our Hauxley Observatory and take our Beginners Guide to Astronomy Course. We had 4 fabulous speakers talking about the astronomy basics, more advance astronomy as well as the cutting-edge science projects happening around the globe. Thank you Adrian, Malcolm, Tim and Oliver for the work you all put in preparing and delivering your talks and thank you to Dave who spent most of each night outside in the cold looking after the equipment and waiting for gaps to appear in the cloud.

Thank you to all our guests - It was a pleasure to meet such a diverse group of people, each person with a spark of interest in astronomy subjects. If any of you would like further advice about navigating you way around the night sky, want to know what exciting things are currently visible up there, need technical advice or would like to see our observatory then just contact us, we'd be more than happy to help.

Adrian took this image at the start of the Cosmos Carnival.

Colours on the Moon

Delicate coloured terrain to the north of the crater Copernicus captured in this view of the gibbous moon. Mare Humorum (with prominent crater Gassendi) emerging from the lunar night at the bottom left.

Nikon D80 f/5.6 1/125s ISO250. Taken through the 16 inch Lightbridge at 6.30pm January 15th 2011.

If you came to the Astro Imaging Workshop and would like to share some of the images you took on the night please email them to emma@nastro.org.uk and they can be shared on our website.

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to Northumberland County Council and the lovely staff at Druridge Bay Country Park who allowed us to use their venue to host these events, for helping us out each night, serving drinks as well as supporting us in advertising the events around the region. It is greatly appreciated and we look forward to working with you again.

The First Nastro Star Camp

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.

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.”

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.

Want to help?

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.Please mention the New Hauxley Visitor Centre Appeal in the message box