CELEBRATING 26 YEARS OF
ASTRONOMY IN IRELANDS MIDWEST
Home
Up
Meetings Timetable
Observing & Equipment
This Months Sky Guide
Weather
Burren Starparty
Gallery
About The Club
Join / Contact Us
Links
Talk Astronomy
on our Forum
Free to register!
CLUB NEWS 2012 / 2011 / 2010 / 2009 / 2008 / 2007 / 2006 / 2005 / 2004 /
2003 / 2002 / 2001 / 2000 /
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th January 2011
Partial Solar Eclipse
A partial solar eclipse was in
progress as sunrise, however due to cloudy weather nothing was seen except
for a 1 minute gap in the
clouds where a small partial phase was observed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th February 2011
2011 AGM
It was decided to run the BSP
this year with no outside speakers and have it as an observing only event with 1
night sky talk, such as
traditional starparties elsewhere in the world. It was decided to change the day
of the club meetings from Wednesday to Thursday due
to difficulties for some members in attending the Wednesday meetings, this
necessitated the changing of the meeting room to 202
from now on.
This becomes effective from March onwards. A new committee was voted in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6th February 2011
25th Anniversary of the club forming, observing session to celebrate
Sunday February 6th was the 25th
anniversary of the club forming, so we had an observing session at the Burren
the following night.
It was perfectly clear untill after middnight when it then slightly hazed over.
Saturn as well as a setting cresent Moon were observed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7th April 2011
April Club Meeting + Observing
The club went ahead and ran an observing night in the grounds
of Mary I to catch a double
occultation by the Moon, namely 37 and 39 Tauri and postponed the usual club
meeting.
The schedule was
37 Tauri goes behind the Moon at 20:07.46 and reappears at 21:07.36
39 Tauri goes behind the Moon at 20:37.38 and reappears at 21:18.32
Clouds abscured alot of the event, but we all got a good view of the Moon
throught the clubs 25x100 binoculars,
10" scope and Tom Walsh's 9.25 SCT.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11, 13, 15, 16th April 2011
Global Astronomy Month (April 2011)
The club ran 4 free observing
sessions at O'Callaghans strand in Limerick during the month, Monday the 11th,
Wednesday the 13th,
Friday the 15 and Saturday the 16th, 7.30pm onwards. We had clear nights on
Monday and Saturday, on Wednesday it clouded over
after 10pm, and on Friday it was completely cloudy. We had the clubs 10 and 12 inch
telescopes there aswell as the 25x100 binoculars
on its new mounting system.
The clubs PRO, Roy Stewart, has sent out posters to all the schools and
libraries in Limerick, he is our point of contact for this event.
The Moon and Saturn were very favourable in the sky and we even got a view of the Beehive cluster in Cancer.
Thanks to advertising this in
most of the schools in Limerick, and the Limerick Leader and The Post
newspapers,
we had over 50 people attend on each night.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 15th
CATDIG PUBLIC PRESENTATION.
The club has been invited along to the Saber Studio in Limerick to give a general
talk on Astronomy, a presentation will be given using
starrynight planetarium program in Burkes Bar in Catherine St, Limerick. The invitation is by the Catherine Street
Culteral Dig (CATDIG)
and is run in conjunction with the ev+a art exhibition.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 14-16 2011
Lunar Eclipse viewing from Barcelona, Spain.
A lunar eclipse was visible on
the 15th of June, however not favourably so from Ireland. So a number
of club members came together
and arranged a trip to Barcelona for a few days with the prime goal of getting a
good view of this eclipse. The club made contact
with the Barcelona
Astronomical Association and arranged to meet up with them at their
observing sites near the olympic stadium.
So club members Dave Lillis, Frank Ryan, Tom Walsh, Michael Johnson and ex SAC
member (now MAC mamber) Michael O'Connell
headed off on Tuesday morning for Dublin airport.
The flight was in the evening, arriving in Barcelona on Tuesday night, the pic above show the apartment and the view fomr it.
On Wednesday morning we met up
with Pierre and joseph of ASTER (Barcelona Astronomical Association) and they
took us on a great
tour of Barcelona, it was certainly enjoyable.
Later on that evening we attended their club meeting before the eclipse where
chairman Dave Lillis gave them a little presentation on
SAC and astronomy in general in Ireland. Later on a Barcelona TV crew arrived
and interviewed members of ASTER about the eclipse.
Click HERE for the
youtube video of the Barcelona TV broadcast, Tom models the eclipse
t-shirt (done up
by Frank Ryan)at 50 seconds into the video for the TV crew.
We then proceeded to head up to
Mount Juic near the olympic stadium and had a grad elevated view across the
mediterranian sea of the
rising eclipse, there were hundreds of members of the public and ASTER there.
The eclispe was very dark so was
not visible in any sense until it was 45 minutes after Moon rise. The bright mid
summer sky didnt help
either, but once the Moon became visible, it showed a stunning deep dark
red colour, barely visible to the naked eye.
We finished up after middnight and headed back to the apartment.
Next morning we headed up to
observatory in the hills to the west of Barcelona.
There we were given a great tour of the facilities and telescopes there.
We headed back to the apartment ready to pack for the airport, we said our
goodbyes to our new found friends in ASTER.
Most people wouldn't travel so
far just to see a lunar eclipse but it was very well worth it,
such a deep lunar eclipse wont be bettered until 2029.
Frank did up a video of this trip, click HERE to watch it on youtube.
For details of the eclipse, click
here.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31st October 2011
Dave and Roy go on Clare FM
The club were invited to send reps to the radio station and discuss generla astronomy, the club and the up coming Burren Starparty
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2-3rd September 2011
BURREN STARPARTY
This months starparty ws once
again a great success, unfortunately Friday night was rained out but Saturday
proved to be far better.
On Saturday evening the sky had 50-50 cloud cover, but as soon as the night
fell, the skies cleared and remained so untill 1am Sunday morning. Many great
sights were seen such as the supernova in M101, comet Gerradd, Jupiter and
numerous open/globular clusters and nebulae. Many high end telescopes were
there, such as numberous SCT's, refractors and dobsonians.
We setup at 7pm while still bright, making it alot easier to get ready. As it
got dark, the crowds swelled and a good evening was had by all.
Many thanks to all who came along and we look forward to seeing you all again
next year.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8th October 2011
International observe the Moon night
The
club attempted to hold an observing session at O'Callaghans Strand in Limerick
on the 8th of October.
The
weather was against us and it was completely cloudy, which was a pity as we were
hoping to see a few meteors from
the Draconid meteor shower also.
Next time this event comes around we will try it again.
see below for more details.
http://observethemoonnight.org/
Spaceweather
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
18th December 2011
Christmass night out
A good
night was had by all at South's Pub on O'Connell avenue, Limerick.
Had a good few drinks to sign off another successfull year.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------