Welcome to the FREE Virtual Astronomy Club

We’re sharing the passion for our hobby and Keeping Astronomy Sociable.

No experience is required, just your passion for astronomy.

Look out for Live-streaming through the telescope and Pop-Up gAstro Pub get-togethers from time to time.

Our schedule of future meetings and speakers is shown lower down the page.

Usual meetings are at 18:00 UT (19:00 BST) usually on the first and third Tuesday of each month.

---

---

Tuesday 20th April.
Julian Onions
Crazy experimental spaceships.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JOIN THE VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY CLUB EVENTS USING ZOOM

www.star-gazing.co.uk/JoinVAC

Zoom Meeting ID: 864 9340 6434
Don’t forget the passcode: 002988

Keep Safe
Keep Well
Keep Looking Up

Dave

---

We have been invited to attend two meetings on the 12th of April.

Clydesdale Astronomical Society.
Richard Miles (BAA) – Fire and Ice – Introducing the most volcanically-active bodies in the Solar System
Time: Apr 12, 2021 07:00 PM BST.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86470668393?pwd=Nk1wRlVuQ1NCNldjNmh1OVR1Mkt6UT09
Meeting ID: 864 7066 8393
Passcode: 577941

Northampton Natural History Society (Astro section)
Melissa Gillone – Galaxy Evolution
Time: Apr 12, 2021 07:30 PM BST.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89312114049
Meeting ID: 893 1211 4049
Passcode: 436920

---

We haven’t yet found ourselves unable to connect as we have hit our 100 limit yet.
But if we do, you should be able to follow proceedings over on my YouTube channel (where it is possible for me to live-stream the talks):
http://www.youtube.com/DaveEagle-Star-Gazing

Past recorded meetings can also be found here.

Links to our previous meetings are at the bottom of this page.

---

Got some pictures? How about showing them to everyone?
If you do not want to present, or don’t have facilities to show them, send them to me
or add them to the padlet above.
It would be nice to show them at the general meetings or in between times.

Send in any questions to me for any of the Q&A sessions.
Or if you’ve got any images of a presentation you’d like to show, let me know.

---

Future Meetings.

I do intend to keep this club going after the lock down ends.
Social media is great, but these face-to-face live interactions are infinitely better.
Obviously, not as good as meeting up in real life. But that will return. 

The Virtual Astronomy Club will run on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of every month at 18:00 UT (19:00 BST).

Future meeting dates.
If you have any ideas of a subject or speaker for future meetings, please let me know.

We have been invited to attend two meetings on the 12th of April.

Clydesdale Astronomical Society.
Richard Miles (BAA) – Fire and Ice – Introducing the most volcanically-active bodies in the Solar System
Time: Apr 12, 2021 07:00 PM BST.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86470668393?pwd=Nk1wRlVuQ1NCNldjNmh1OVR1Mkt6UT09
Meeting ID: 864 7066 8393
Passcode: 577941

Northampton Natural History Society (Astro section)
Melissa Gillone – Galaxy Evolution
Time: Apr 12, 2021 07:30 PM BST.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89312114049
Meeting ID: 893 1211 4049
Passcode: 436920

Tuesday 4th May.
Katrin Raynor-Evans.
Exploring Astronomy and Space through Philately.

Tuesday 18th May.
Paul Money
Subject to be confirmed.

Tuesday 1st June.
Philip Price.
History of the Space Shuttle.

Tuesday 15th June.
End of Term Party.

There will be no VAC Meetings in July and August.
We’ll be back on the 28th of September.
So book it in your diaries.

---

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JOIN THE VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY CLUB USING ZOOM

www.star-gazing.co.uk/JoinVAC

Zoom Meeting ID: 864 9340 6434
Don’t forget the passcode: 002988

Keep Safe
Keep Well
Keep Looking Up

Dave

---

If anyone else would like to present something, show their pictures, share what you’ve seen online, or anything else astronomy related, please do feel free to join in the melee.

If you have any ideas for the club, pitch right in there.

At intervals we’ll also try and do some live streaming through the telescope.
If you also have the setup to be able to do this, please let me know.

I’m hoping that it will feel just like attending a real club and bring a little bit of “normality” back into our lives and help us keep sharing our passion for astronomy.

So if you want to be part of this, come and join us.

Everyone is very welcome.

Virtual Zoom meetings have been organised for 7pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
We can organise more if there is enough interest.

Let me know if you need some guidance on how to get Zoom set up.

If you are thinking of organising a meeting yourself, let me know.
I can add yours meeting to the list for others to join in.

Note:
Only 100 people can join using this Zoom package, so get yourself into the waiting room a little bit before the start time to avoid being locked out.

If we do find yourself unable to connect as we have hit our 100 limit, you should be able to follow proceedings over on my Youtube channel.
Many of our meetings can also be viewed there:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Eagleseye45/videos

You can still post questions to the speaker on YouTube while the presentation is running, although there is a little bit of a delay in the stream. I’ll keep and eye out for any questions posted and ask the speaker them at the end of their presentation.

Let’s keep Astronomy sociable folks.

---

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO JOIN THE VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY CLUB USING ZOOM

www.star-gazing.co.uk/JoinVAC

Zoom Meeting ID: 864 9340 6434
Don’t forget the passcode: 002988

Keep Safe
Keep Well
Keep Looking Up

Dave

---

Past Events.

Tuesday 6th April.
John Thatcher.
The Webb Space Telescope

Sorry!!! The previous video I uploaded seemed to have got corrupted in some way.
Now fixed.

23rd of March – VAC’s first anniversary.
WOW!!! Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?
For this very special occasion we were delighted to welcome Jim Al-Khalili.
The World According to Physics.

Thanks to John Murrell, here’s a link to a new paper released on anomalies in the decay of Beauty Quarks:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.11769.pdf

Tuesday 16th March. 7:00pm UT.
General Astro Chat, Get-Together and Q & A Session.
We also had a great tour around people’s home-made observatories.

Tuesday 2nd March – 7pm
Dr David Boyce
Imaging Uranus’ Moons

18th February.
Live Watch Party of the landing of NASA’s Perseverance Probe on Mars
Joint GoSpaceWatch and AstroRadio Event

Tuesday 16th February.
Mary McIntyre
Shadows In Space & The Stories They Tell
Catch up on Mary’s talk here:

Friday 11th February.
Pop-Up gAstro Pub 

Monday 8th February.
NNHS Astro Meeting.
Mike Frost
Prominent Women of the BAA.
Catch up with mike’s talk here:
https://youtu.be/2UWi_HR1vS0

Tuesday 2nd February.
Nicholas Booth.
With Perseverance and Hope – Despatches from a Red Planet.

Nick’s book The Search for Life on Mars, co-written with Elizabeth Howell, is available to buy here:
https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Search-for-Life-on-Mars/Elizabeth-Howell/9781950691395

Tuesday 19th January – 7pm GMT (19:00 UT).

Paul Fellows.
Quark Stars & Strangelets.

Monday 11th January – NNHS Astro Meeting.
Martin Griffiths, from Dark Sky Wales.
Contact with ET. How will it affect us?

Tuesday 5th January.
It’s all about you.
Thank you to everyone who told us about themselves.
Your Astronomy Journey, what you are up to.
And what your astro plans for 2021 onwards were.

Tuesday 15th December 7pm.
Thank you to everyone for their entertaining talks,  quiz, sing-a-long and funnies and banter.
That really did help celebrate making it through this crazy old year.
And a very big Thank You to everyone who’s joined us on this crazy VAC journey this year.
See you all in an improving 2021.

Dusko – My Underwater Observatory.
Roger – Roundup of the year.
John – Singalong.
Pete – Quiz.
Nick – Funnies.

The Elf Video can be viewed here: ElfYourself

Friday 4th December.
Pop-Up gAstro Pub.

Tuesday 1st December.
Paul Money.
Images of The Universe (Part 2).

Tuesday 24th November.
Practical Evening.
Image Capture, Post-Processing, Polar Alignment, Focusing & Auto-Guiding.
Thank you to Phil and Roger and everyone for their questions.

20th November. POP-UP gAstro Pub.
Banter and chat an introducing ourselves on the Scribble padlet:
www.star-gazing.co.uk/Scribble

Tuesday 17th November.
Dr Nick Hewitt.
The Great Debate.

Monday 16th November.
Live watch party for the Crew-1 launch to The ISS.
Thanks for joining me everyone. Real good fun.

Friday 13th November.
VAC Pop-Up gAstro Pub.
After our first week of lockdown Part II, we had a great get together over a tipple in The Nag’s Head.
Thanks for joining me folks.

Tuesday 3rd November (Late session).
Live telescope views of Mars and a tour around The Moon.
This is an image of Mars I took while we were live.

Tuesday 3rd November (Early Session).
Tim Gregory.
Beyond the Blue Sky: Science for the Sake of Science.
Why bother studying meteorites?
Are there any societal benefits to studying stones from the sky?
What have we learned?

Tim’s new Meteorite book is available from all good (and bad) bookshops:
https://www.tim-gregory.co.uk/book

Tuesday 20th October.
Live Watch Party for the Live Bennu TAG Sampling by OSIRIS-REx.

Phil Price.
Space Missions for 2021 and Mars explorers.

 

Tuesday 6th October.
Pete Williamson.
Herschel To Hawkwind.

Good to get your glad rags on and dance away, or just listen to Pete from Astro Radio.
Pete took us all on a nostalgic space-themed musical journey.
Listen to Astro Radio here: www.astroradio.earth

Tuesday 29th September.
Grant Bowskill.
The Ikarus Observatory.

Ikarus Observatory links.
Ikarus Observatory on Stargazers Lounge:
https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/294-iki-observatory
Eagle Nebula Data:
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/360782-iko-m16-data-release-august-2020
Crescent Nebula Data:
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/362834-iko-ngc6888-crescent-nebula-data-release-september-2020
Pixel Skies (Spanish host of the Ikarus Observatory): https://www.pixelskiesastro.com

Monday 21st September.
Paul Money.
Images of The Universe (Part 1).
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to record Paul’s presentation.

15th September.
General Meeting.
Julian Onions – Venus and Phosphines.
Mineral Moon Saturation Demo.
Deep Sky Stacker – Stacking Tips.
Registax and Affinity Photo Image Processing Demo’s.
The Opposition of Mars.

8th September.
Martin Hardcastle.
Surveying the Sky for Radio Galaxies.

Citizen Science LOFAR Radio Galaxy Project.
http://lofargalaxyzoo.nl

1st September.
Nick Hewitt & Shaun Reynolds.
Nebulae.

25th August.
Prof. Brad Gibson.
Liquid Mirror Telescopes (Wave of the Future, or Just a Ripple…).
E. A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics Web page:
http://www.milne.hull.ac.uk

18th August.
General meeting on planet observing and imaging.
Also looking forward to the coming opposition of Mars.

Here is the Mars Features BAA Web Page Nick Hewitt mentioned.
https://britastro.org/node/23843

11th August.
John Maclean
The Golden Age of Islamic Astronomy.

4th August.
General meeting, shared our astronomical experiences and pictures.
Q&A Session.

Tuesday- 28th July.
Chris Lintott
Adventures In The Zooniverse

Join in with The Zooniverse by clicking the link below.
https://www.zooniverse.org

Signed copies of Chris’ book “The Crowd and The Cosmos” can be pre-ordered from the link below.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2zUHs-3gSQK5JvFDiPSwbto9aAKGBU3Psc78EpgtGyzzI8Q/viewform

Tuesday – 21st July.
How to do Webcam Planet & Moon Imaging.
Your NEOWISE Comet Stories and Images.

Tuesday – 14th July.
Ian Ridpath
Pictures in the Sky

Ian’s constellation Star Tales Web site:
www.ianridpath.com/startales.htm

Thursday – 9th July.
Celebrating this months 25th anniversary of the discovery of Comet Hale-Bopp.
Alan Hale

Ice & Stone Web Page – halebopp.org
Earth Rise Institute Web Page – http://earthriseinstitute.org

Tuesday – 7th July.
Martin Lewis
Venus night-side infra-red imaging

Tuesday – 30th June.
Mark Gibbons
Fast Radio Bursts
Sorry folks.
Unfortunately I was unable to record Mark’s presentation.

Dr Susan Cartwright – 25th June.
Footprints of The Big Bang

Susan’s talk is now available to view on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/ZwXT2L4yAeo

Mike Poxon – 23rd June 2020. 
Variable Stars
Mike’s talk is available to view on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/8NL2tVB3WQo

The AAVSO Web site Mike mentioned is here:
http://aavso.org

Sam Cornwell – 18th June 2020.
The Solarcan

Watch Sam’s presentation on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/isoUSlYfwYE
The 15% Solarcan discount code is: solareagle

Dr Johanna Jarvis – 16th June.
Astronomy in a Volcanic Landscape.

If you missed Jo’s talk, it is available to view on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/zsGc1uXXgBM

Open University Online Course Links.
OpenLearn
https://www.open.edu/openlearn
Open University – Moons Of The Solar System Online Course:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/moons-our-solar-system/content-section-overview
Open University – Astronomy with an Online Telescope:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/astronomy/create-stunning-images-the-universe

Thursday – 11th June
Star Clusters and some challenges for the Summer.
General Discussion and social get-together.

Robin Scagell – 9th June
Stars Ancient And Modern

Robin’s talk is available on my YouTube Channel:
https://youtu.be/MpxZhm_JreM 
The link for the online star motion simulator Robin demonstrated to us is:
tinyurl.com/paststars

Thursday – 4th June 7:00pm.
Moon Observing and Imaging.
General Discussion and social get-together.

Dr Susan Cartwright. 2nd June.
Footprints of The Big Bang.
Unfortunately, Susan had Internet issues and couldn’t present.
I will try and re-book her.

Saturday 30th May 2020.
LIVE Launch Party tonight for the second attempt of the Falcon 9 Crew Dragon launch from Cape Canaveral.
****Doug & Bob’s Accelerant Adventure.****
It was a very successful live event with us all getting together to watch this historic launch.

Thursday 28th May 2020.
General get-together.
How to computer control a mount.

Wednesday – 27th May 2020.
Crewed launch from Cape Canaveral.
Launch Scrubbed. But we all went outside and saw the ISS go over.
Plus I was able to live stream video images of The Moon.

Tuesday – 26th May 2020.
Mike Frost.
How To Lose Weight.

Thursday – 21st May
Phil Price. Missions To The Sun. 21st May 2020
Plus what to see in the sky.

Peter Jenkins. 19th May 2020.
My Astrophotography Journey.
Peter’s Web site: http://www.pjastro.co.uk
Telescope Live: https://telescope.live

Thursday – 14th May.
Latest on the comets and what to look for in the sky.
Plus a run through of Affinity Photo to show it is used for processing astrophotography images.

David Warrington. 12th May 2020.
The Scottish Dark Skies Observatory.
https://scottishdarkskyobservatory.co.uk

Thursday 7th May 2020.
John McEvoy – Asteroids Bennu and Ryugu.
Dave Eagle – Update on Comet SWAN and what we MIGHT expect.
Here is the link to Stuart Atkinson’s Flickr site where he has posted lots of maps for Comet SWAN.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/38065120@N04

Pete Lawrence. 5th May 2020
Upcoming Observing Challenges.

Click here to watch Pete’s presentation on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/Zm-_Yc1jwOg

Here are some links to lists of Moon Clair-Obscure features Pete mentioned:
Astronomy Magazine.
https://astronomy.com/magazine/2018/11/observe-shadow-play–on-the-moon
Mary McIntyre’s Lunar X & V Spotting Guide.
https://marysastronomyblogs.blogspot.com/2019/12/lunar-x-and-v-times-for-2020.html
Sky & Telescope’s Lunar 100 Observing Guide.
https://skyandtelescope.org/observing/celestial-objects-to-watch/the-lunar-100

Thursday – 30th April.
Roger gave us some image processing demos using Pixinsight and StarStaX.
Ian also showed us some of his fabulous images and told us about his astrophotography journey.

Tuesday – 28th April.
Joint Meeting with NNHS Astronomy Section.
Bob Lambourne
Developments in the Science of Black Holes.
We were unable to record Bob’s presentation. Sorry.

Joint Meeting with Go Space Watch to mark the 30th anniversary of the deployment of The Hubble Space Telescope.
Dr Steve Barratt. 25th April 2020
The Legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The presentation can now be watched on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/TmPrwfgDzmI

A pdf file of the talk Steve’s  be downloaded from here:
Legacy-Hubble-GSW

Thursday 23rd April 2020.
Question and answer session and sharing of recent astronomy images / observations.
Live streaming of Venus (if clear).
Phil Price. Astronomy with a iPhone.
Sandy Whitton. Recent images.

Tuesday – 21st April 2020.
Paul Fellows.
Hawking’s Black Holes and the Edge of Physics.

Pauls’ presentation can be viewed on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/Q3qnK1RlIVI

Thursday – 16th April 2020. 
Many thanks to Roger, Kevin and David for sharing their pictures and astronomical journeys.

Here are the links to the OU online courses.
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/moons-our-solar-system/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/the-night-sky-orion/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/astronomy/astronomy-online-telescope/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab

The Royal Astronomical Society are hosting an online talk to mark the 30th Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope  – Book via Eventbrite.
https://ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/RAS-Bicentennial-Event   

Tuesday – 14th April 2020. 
Terry Lovejoy (Comet discoverer extraordinaire).
Terry Lovejoy’s Top Ten Comets.
Watch on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmmsVT6spbQ

Saturday 11th April 2020.
Dave Eagle – Apollo 13 50th Anniversary Presentation.
Saving Apollo 13: Houston We’ve Had a Problem.
Joint meeting with Go Space Watch.

The presentation is now available to watch on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/s8nQdtoKZfw

Thursday – 9th April 2020.
Szabolcs Nagy (Space Station Guys – @metrolinaszabi).
ISS Imaging and Demonstration.

Szabi’s Presentation is now available to watch on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWakRYj_H6g

Tuesday – 7th April 2020. 
John Spencer – Planetary Scientist and New Horizons Science Team Member.
A Billion Miles Beyond Pluto: New Horizons Explores Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth.
I was hoping this presentation had been uploaded automatically to Youtube, but it wasn’t. Sorry.

Steve Tonkin – 2nd April 2020
Two Eyes Are Better Than One.
Download Steve’s presentation by clicking the image below to visit our Dropbox folder.

Dave Eagle.
Solar Webcam Image Processing.
Download the AVI from the solar imaging demo from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9k7medirj1gkwlt/AAC4dqakRuUiYIJJHgz0KKqma?dl=0
I would be really interested in seeing what people can do with the image.

Shaun Reynolds. – 26th March 2020.
Shooting The Milky Way. 

Julian Onion
Dark Matter. – 24th of March 2020
Click on the image below to download Julian’s slides.