The latest news from Sunderland Astronomical Society

SAS Memberships – New Season 2025-2026

September is the start of our new season. SAS Memberships will be due from 1st September 2025 (payable throughout September) for this season 2025/2026 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…

20th September: SAS Starbeque

This year’s Starbeque will be held at our usual venue, the Millshields car Derwent Reservoir on Saturday 20th September 2025. We meet around 3pm for our picnic / barbeque and continue into the night for stargazing.   If the weather forecast is for cloud or rain will not stop the event going ahead, but we…

20th July: ZWO SeeStar S50 – Workshop / Tutorial

Something a bit different for the July 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. If you have a Seestar S50, or are are thinking of getting one, or would like to know…

15th June Lecture: Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) – ESA/CAS Mission

Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE)  is a mission that will revolutionise our understanding of the solar-terrestrial relationship, including the dynamic processes that control phenomena such as the aurora borealis (Norther/Southern Lights). In this fascinating talk Dr Jennifer Carter  (Leicester University) will explain how the mission was born from a problem for X-ray astronomers,…

16th March Lecture: Tackling Turbulence

As larger telescopes get, as more light they gather. This together with the wish for higher spatial resolution gives rise to the development of telescopes of larger size. However, while the light gathering power increase works very well, due to the perturbations of our atmosphere the larger telescopes not necessarily deliver images of higher resolution,…

16th February Lecture: What is Space?

We know surprisingly little about the nature of the stage upon which the universe’s great show plays out. In this talk Graham Darke will take us through the ages, along the way examining humanity’s developing understanding of what space is. It will bring us right up to the modern era where what we know today…

15th December Lecture: The Star of Bethlehem

The Star of Bethlehem. Talk this Sunday 15th December 7pm. With the academic world closing for Christmas we’re not able to get a guest speaker this month’s talk slot. Therefore Chris Duffy our Chair will do a light hearted topical talk this Sunday on “The Star of Bethlehem“. Assuming the famous star was real, what…