The latest news from Sunderland Astronomical Society
Join members of Sunderland & Durham Astronomical Societies at Rainton Meadows Nature Reserve for this public stargazing event. Enjoy a tour of the night skies from this welcoming and friendly group of amateur astronomers. Ideal for children who will wow in amazement at the sights through the telescopes! Date: Saturday 25 January 2020. Times: from 7:00 pm –…
The SALT-HRS spectrograph has been developed and assembled between 2008 and 2013, with the main integration happening at the Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI) of Durham University. Jurgen, himself member of the CfAI SALT-HRS team (and of Sunderland AS) provides an overview about astronomy in South Africa, the technical novelties of the 11m SALT telescope…
Astronomy for Beginners – A simplified view of the universe. How to start observing by finding some of the main stars and constellations. Understand how the stars appear to move across the sky. Why does what we see in the night sky change with the seasons and where does Orion go in the summer? What are…
Just over one hundred years ago Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves on the basis of his General Theory of Relativity. For over 20 years physicists have been trying to catch the first gravity wave without success until February 2016 when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced that they had recorded the ripples…
September is the start of our new season. SAS Memberships will be due from 1st September 2022 (payable throughout September) for this season 2022/2023 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…
SAS Memberships will be due from 1st September 2020 (payable throughout September) for this season 2020/2021. Joining/Renewing helps support your local astronomical society & community. In this special year when we can’t meet as we would like, and haven’t been able to do our fundraising events your membership subscriptions are even more important to help keep…
Sunderland Astro AUGUST UPDATE. Hi everyone, I thought I would give a further update on where we are at restarting society events. We were hoping to start limited events this month but at the last minute the government changed their mind about some of the August rule changes and these do have a bearing on…
September is the start of our new season. SAS Memberships will be due from 1st September 2019 (payable throughout September) for this season 2019/2020. Joining/Renewing helps support your local astronomical society & community. So come on down to the Cygnus Observatory join or renew your SAS membership. The SAS the largest & probably most active astronomical society’s in the North East,…
Uranus spins on its side. With its spin axis pointing almost at right angles to those of all the other planets, the common explanation is that a proto-planet at least as large as the Earth crashed into the young planet, sending it spinning in this new direction. Giant impacts like these were common events in…
The Autumn is one of speaker Dave Newton’s favourite times of year for astronomy, thanks in part to the longer, darker nights. Importantly, in Autumn evenings we are looking away from our own galaxy (the Milky Way) and into the deep space beyond. The Autumn constellations have a decidedly watery theme, containing Pisces the fishes,…