HeatonPark Astronomy

Our night sky notes for June are now on the website: hpag.co.uk/the-night-sky-… It's not the best of months for stargazing, with no astronomical darkness, but June and July are months when you may be able to spot noctilucent (night shining) clouds.

Tonight's meeting 15th Feb We will be indoors. The talk will be 'The 18th Century Transit of Venus Expeditions'. Then we'll have videos about the size of the universe, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, and the possibility of other life in the universe. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 8th Feb The talk will be 'Light, Lenses & Telescopes'. Videos will be about 'Oumuamua, the difficulties SpaceX will have on a possible mission to Mars, and on whether the universe is infinite. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 1st Feb. It looks like being cloudy. The talk will be 'Chinese Astronomy - Ancient and Modern', and we'll have videos about the colour of Neptune, Ingenuity's last flight on Mars, and the new space race back to the Moon. hpag.co.uk for more info.

Tonight's meeting 25 Jan - We will be having a talk about the James Webb Space Telescope, and videos about the main stars of Orion, the discovery of a giant galaxy ring by a UCLAN student, and a review of smart telescopes. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 18th Jan It's forecast clear into the evening, so we will probably be able to have scopes outside. For anyone not wanting to go outside stargazing, we will show a feature length video, The History of the Earth. See hpag.co.uk for more info.

Tonight's meeting 11 Jan. We'll have a talk about the Classification of Stars; videos about how Eratosthenes worked out the circumference of the Earth in C2 BC; Monday's Peregrine moon lander launch; and the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh. hpag.co.uk

Orion rising. Some recent research has indicated that Betelgeuse could go supernova within the next few decades, rather than sometime in the next million years as previously thought. When it does go pop, it will be as bright as the full moon.

Tonight's meeting 4th Jan 7-9pm. It's forecast cloudy, so we will be indoors. The talk will be 'Art and Astronomy', and videos will be about the top 5 space news stories of 2023, night sky events coming up in 2024, and gamma ray bursts. hpag.co.uk

Our night sky notes for January here: hpag.co.uk/the-night-sky-… Highlights: the Quadrantid meteor shower on the night of 3rd/4th; Venus still very bright in the morning sky, with Jupiter dominating the evening sky; and still plenty of astro darkness - if the clouds stay away!

Tonight's meeting 14 Dec. It's the max of the Geminid meteor shower tonight, so we'll be outside if it's clear. If not, the talk will be about Dark Sky Places, and we'll have videos about near Earth objects, black holes, and the colours of aurorae. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 7 Dec. A talk on ' Signal to Noise Ratio - Hunting Cosmic Photons in a Sea of Noise' , and videos about what goes on inside the Sun, how near a supernova would need to be to Earth to cause a mass extinction, and an explanation of the colours in aurorae.

Our night sky notes for December are now on the website: hpag.co.uk/the-night-sky-… Highlights: Jupiter, Venus and Saturn all on show. And the best meteor shower of the year. The Geminids peak rate is on 14th December, which is a meeting night. All we need is clear sky!

Tonight's meeting 30 Nov. Forecasts are saying that it will be cold and mostly clear, so it's likely that we will be able to have scopes outside. For those who don't want to go outside, we will show a feature length video 'Journey through the Milky Way'. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 23 Nov. The talk will be 'On the Moon', and videos are on the latest SpaceX Starship test flight, types of star clusters, and what's in the night sky through November going into December. hpag.co.uk

TONIGHT'S MEETING 16 NOV It's forecast cloudy for this evening, so we will probably be indoors. The talk will be 'Atoms, the Periodic Table and the Stars', and videos about Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman, types of nebulae, and the Voyager missions. hpag.co.uk

Tonight's meeting 9 Nov. The talk will be about The Antikythera Mechanism, and videos about how we discovered Earth's location within our Milky Way galaxy, the discovery of pulsars, and does the Earth have more than one moon? hpag.co.uk for more info

TONIGHT'S MEETING 2 NOV The weather forecast for this evening is rubbish, so we will be indoors. The talk will be 'Debunking the Nonsense in Sci-Fi', and videos about how we found out Earth's location in the Milky Way, Betelgeuse's Great Dimming, and Earth's other moons.

Our night sky notes for November are here: hpag.co.uk/the-night-sky-… Highlights include Venus and Jupiter continuing to shine bright and high, an occultation of Venus by the Moon on the morning of 9th November, and a few meteor showers with the possibility of fireballs.

TONIGHT'S MEETING 26 OCT This evening will be a 'Stargazing for Beginners' evening -  a general intro to astronomy, what there is to see up there, and finding your way around the night sky. There might be a few gaps in the clouds so we can get outside to eyeball Jupiter etc.