16th August Lecture: Thomas Wright - Local prominent 18th-century Astronomer

 

Thomas Wright was born in a small County Durham village and yet rose through his own genius to enjoy the patronage and even friendship of the country’s aristocracy. However, Wright’s life was also dogged by scandals, financial mishaps and unfortunate associations. which perhaps explains why he remains largely unknown outside of the North East of England. Indeed, Wright would probably have disappeared into total obscurity had his works not been picked up by German Philosopher, Emmanuel Kant.

Wright’s principal claim to fame was that he was the first to fully realise the nature of the Milky Way, that we live in a galaxy. He was also a genuine polymath – a skilled instrument maker, an illustrator, a mathematician, an architect and even a garden design to rival the likes of Capability Brown.

We’ll talk about his life, his work, his struggles and his successes. We’ll even include the juicy bits.

If there’s time, I’ll also go into the progress we’ve made rehoming the Espin telescope, largest astronomical telescope in the North East of England. We’ve made a lot of progress. The telescope has essentially been saved. That said, we need support. We need funds. Please help where you can.

We now have MS Teams  for live video streaming of the our monthly talks.

Please try to attend in person if you can as it goes along way in showing you support for our speaker and our Society.

 

Microsoft Teams 

Meeting link: TBC..

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