Rocks returned to Earth by the Apollo astronauts over 50 years ago profoundly changed our view of how the Moon has formed. This talk will review our current understanding of the Moon’s formation, explaining planet formation more generally and how computer simulations are being used to try to infer what happened 4.5 billion years ago.
September is the start of our new season. SAS Memberships will be due from 1st September 2024 (payable throughout September) for this season 2024/2025 Joining/Renewing helps support your local astronomical society & community. So come on down to the Cygnus Observatory (based at the Washington Wetlands Centre) to join or renew your SAS membership. The SAS is the largest…
JWST has revealed exciting discoveries of galaxies that existed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. However, due to the faintness of these distant galaxies in JWST observations, obtaining detailed information such as their environments and chemical distributions remains challenging. Extremely metal-poor galaxies in the local universe, a type of dwarf galaxies…
This year’s Starbque will be held at our usual venue, the Millshields car Derwent Reservoir on Saturday 7th September 2024. We meet around 3pm for our picnic / barbeque and continue into the night for stargazing. A bit of cloud or rain will not stop the event going ahead but we will consider an…
There won’t be any lecture Sunday 18th Lecture night is having a rest, so we are having an “Equipment Workshop Night”. The observing/Astrophotography season is starting now that the dark skies have returned so it’s time to get your equipment in tip top condition. We will therefore be doing an equipment workshop. Come…
In this talk Dr Steve Barrett will give a brief description of the origin and the very early history of the Universe. After the Big Bang it took about three minutes to make all the constituents of the Universe and give it a kickstart. If this happened 13.8 billion years ago, how can we be…
The Sunderland Astronomical Society’s Astrophotography Competition will held on Sunday 28th July 2024 and we are returning to our pre Covid format. The event will be held at the Washington wetlands centre from 7:00 pm, where the best of our SAS astrophotographer images will be displayed and voted on at the event. All members attending…
Keith been a dedicated planetary imager since webcam imaging first started off. Keith has been a trail blazer in the field of Planetary Imaging for many years. Keith has gained a vast amount of knowledge, tips nd tricks on the subject which he is keen to share. In this talk Keith gives a hands on…
Something a bit different for the May lecture night. In recent years “Smart Telescopes” have arrived on the astronomy scene. Smart telescopes offer an automated way of doing astronomy and astrophotography, albeit at a quite expensive price. Last year ZWO released the SeeStar S50 offering a smart telescope at the price of an entry level…
Since the telescope was invented about 400 years ago, they grew in size considerably to adapt with advances in astronomy. In this presentation Dr Jurgen Schmoll gives a historical overview of world’s largest telescopes of the past before looking into current projects which include the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).…