For 2 days each year at the start of February, the UK astronomy magazine "Astronomy Now" organises a national festival celebrating recent news in astronomy and bringing amateurs together to hone their skills. This year I was lucky to visit the conference on both Friday and Saturday and there were some excellent talks on Phobos and Deimos (Emily Baldwin), epsilon Aurigae (Nathalie Thureau), Uranus & Neptune (Chris Arridge) and the Moon (Chuck Wood) amongst several others. Sadly I missed the principal galactic astronomy talk by Gerry Gilmore of Cambridge University because session 4 (Saturday afternoon) was already sold out.
I also enjoyed the trade stalls in particular those of the BAA and Ian King Imaging/Shelyak Instruments, the latter a French company specialising in spectroscopes for amateur astronomers. I would love to buy their LISA instrument but the Star Analyser is more realistic for my budget/telescope!
Ian Ridpath during the Friday afternoon session interval
Nathalie Thureau describes the CHARA infra-red interferometer
"It's not Rocket Science", a very amusing space-themed comedy show by Helen Keen (Radio 4 in March/April)
Links
- AstroFest 2011 blog
- epsilon Aurigae press release at the University of St Andrews
- Uranus Pathfinder
- Helen Keen, writer & comedian
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