We are back at our normal venue from 3rd Sept. 2021 |
This page lists our monthly meetings. For other events open to the general public, see our Events page
Dates are set well in advance but the 'content' of the meeting is only updated (from our 'meetings database') when details are entered, so 'blank' or 'TBA' may be shown when data has not yet been entered (please be assured that the meeting will take place and a talk on (some) Subject will be delivered by (some) Speaker ! )
During the COVID-19 restrictions, all meetings are being held on-line using ZOOM. Meetings are normally held at the Church Hall (aka 'The Soltau Center') of St James-the-Less, Stubbings, Maidenhead SL6 6QW, from 7.30 (for a ZOOM link, or map and directions, see the About MAS (Where we meet) page
The Main Topic is usually delivered by an invited guest speaker. We aim to provide a diverse range of subjects linked (in some way) to Astronomy - whilst the 'Second Session' is typically delivered by one of our members. If time allows, the evening concludes with a short 'What to see this month'.
Details of a typical evening (times are approximate) :- 7.30pm. The evening starts with the Chairman delivering any important Announcements and then introducing the main speaker. 7.45pm (latest). Main Topic Speaker gets up and the lights are turned off. If you arrive after 7.45, please enter the Hall by the first door (on the right, after the entrance) and please be extra careful when finding a seat at the back of the Hall as members often setup telescopes there ! 8.45-9pm +. Coffee break during which visitors often chat with members who have set-up their telescopes at the back of the hall. If the weather is good, sometimes members will nip out for a quick look at the sky. Smoking is permitted outside the Hall, however smokers are asked to avoid any 'observers' (smoke particles always seem to get into optical equipment, no matter how well 'sealed' it may be) 9.15pm (at the latest). The 'Second Session' then runs for about 45 mins, typically ending with "What's Up !" (what to look out for in the sky this month) 10pm. We aim to clear the hall by 10pm. Post meeting Observing. If the weather is good, the Observing Organiser then leads the way to our chosen observing site, or (if the weather looks even a slight bit 'iffy) members sneak off to the local Pub instead :-)
Next meeting :
(+) 7 Jun 2024 MAS 67th AGM - (Annual General Meeting)
Meetings Archive |
The meetings archive gives an 'overview' of the Society activities over the past 10 years (see also the Events page).
Members have access to the full 'History of MAS' (including AGM minutes going back to 1957) along with full names and photos
The MAS 'year' runs from September of one year to June of the following. The end of year AGM in June elects the Committee for the following year (there are no meetings in July and August - although often members will meet informally at the local pub - which gives the new Committee time to 'get a grip' on running the Society)
The "short cuts" (in the 'title bar', at the very top of this page) will take you to the June AGM entry for the end of that MAS year
The Maidenhead Astronomical Society meetings archive (last 10 years only)
Missed a meeting, or can't remember when a topic was last covered ? Here is the archive of past MAS meetings.
Note that this list covers only our monthly meetings and AGM's. Reports on Observing and Other Events are separate pages
If notes were taken at the meeting, the date below is underlined and shown with a '(+)' = click to see the notes (if no '(+)' is shown, no notes were taken - or, more likely, the webmaster hasn't found them and posted them up yet :-) )
(+) 3 May 2024 The Exploration of Venus - (Jim House)
(+) 5 Apr 2024 The Visible Universe - (Doctor Max Whitby)
(+) 1 Mar 2024 Water in the Universe - (Prof Jonathan Tennyson)
(+) 2 Feb 2024 The Mechanics of Eclipses - (Sheridan Williams FRAS)
(+) 5 Jan 2024 Telescope Parade - (and the Parker Solar Probe by Arthur White)
(+) 1 Dec 2023 SPECIAL FEATURE Herschels Lunatick Friends - (Andrew Lound)
(+) 3 Nov 2023 Binary Pulsars Einsteins Perfect Laboratories - (Barry Kellett)
(+) 6 Oct 2023 Solar Space Weather SOHO - (Dr Eric Dunford)
(+) 1 Sep 2023 The Changing Climate of Mars - (Peter Read)
(+) 2 Jun 2023 MAS 66th AGM - (Annual General Meeting)
(+) 5 May 2023 Two talks by members - (LATE CHANGE)
(+) 31 Mar 2023 Overview of telescopes and mounts - (Dave Hayes)
(+) 3 Mar 2023 Study of our Galaxy in the Era of Gaia - (James Binney)
(+) 3 Feb 2023 The Galaxy without a dark side - (Barry Kellett)
(+) 6 Jan 2023 Telescope Parade and Workshop - (by members)
(+) 2 Dec 2022 Xmas Social Photo Comp and Quiz - (set by members)
(+) 4 Nov 2022 Exploration of Jupiter - (Dr Mike Legett)
(+) 7 Oct 2022 The Lunar 100 - (Dr Lilian Hobbs)
(+) 2 Sep 2022 InfraRed Astronomy - (Dr Eric Dunford)
(+) 10 Jun 2022 MAS 65th AGM - (NOTE 2nd Friday)
(+) 6 May 2022 Gravitational Waves - (Joshua Pooley)
(+) 1 Apr 2022 Saturn - (Michael Foulkes)
(+) 4 Mar 2022 Update on the Exploration of Mars - (Jim House)
(+) 4 Feb 2022 What Astronomy Tells Us About The Origins of Life On Earth ? - (James Hough)
(+) 7 Jan 2022 Telescope Parade and Workshop - (by Members)
(+) 3 Dec 2021 Christmas Quiz set by members - (followed by Social Evening)
(+) 5 Nov 2021 CANCELLED - (Hall closed)
(+) 1 Oct 2021 Dark Nebulae - (Owen Brazell)
(+) 3 Sep 2021 How we reached the Moon - (Jerry Stone)
(+) 4 Jun 2021 63rd AGM (ZOOM on line meeting)
(+) 7 May 2021 Milestones in Astronomy - (Rod Hine (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 2 Apr 2021 The Red Sun - (Lyn Smith (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 5 Mar 2021 Tour of the Universe - (Jane Green (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 5 Feb 2021 Space Vehicles - (Graham Bryant (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 8 Jan 2021 The Astronomer's Toolkit - (Dr Lee Anne Willson (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 4 Dec 2020 Xmas Quiz - (set by members (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 6 Nov 2020 The Monster in the Crab - (Gary Poyner (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 2 Oct 2020 Is there anyone out there ? - (Bob Mizon (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 4 Sep 2020 Two eyes are better than one - (Stephen Tonkin (ZOOM on line meeting))
(+) 5 Jun 2020 COVID19 Postponed MAS 62nd AGM
(+) 1 May 2020 COVID19 Postponed The Monster in the Crab - (Gary Poyner)
(+) 3 Apr 2020 COVID19 meeting CANCELLED
(+) 6 Mar 2020 Recent Developments in Gravity Wave Research - (Martin Dyer)
(+) 7 Feb 2020 Ask an expert Q and A panel - (By Members)
(+) 3 Jan 2020 Equipment Parade - (By members)
(+) 6 Dec 2019 Xmas Quiz and social - (By members)
(+) 1 Nov 2019 The Origin of the Solar System - (James Fradgley)
(+) 4 Oct 2019 Kew Observatory and the origins of modern solar physics - (Dr Lee Macdonald)
(+) 6 Sep 2019 History of Mars Exploration - (Jim House)
(+) Aug 2019 Summer break - (no meeting)
(+) Jul 2019 Summer break - (no meeting)
(+) 7 Jun 2019 MAS 61st AGM - (and Photo Competition prizes)
(+) 3 May 2019 13 Journeys in Space and Time - (Colin Stuart)
(+) 5 Apr 2019 Space Weather - (Dr Colin Forsyth)
(+) 1 Mar 2019 The Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) - (Dr Aprajita Verma)
(+) 1 Feb 2019 Ask the Expert - (members panel)
(+) 4 Jan 2019 Equipment exhibition - (and EGM)
(+) 7 Dec 2018 Christmas Quiz and Social
(+) 2 Nov 2018 Short talks - (by members)
(+) 5 Oct 2018 The Future is out of this World - ( Dr Stuart Eves FRAS)
(+) 7 Sep 2018 13 Journeys through space and Time - (Postponed new date TBA)
(+) Aug 2018 Summer break - (no meeting)
(+) Jul 2018 Summer break - (no meeting)
(+) 1 Jun 2018 MAS 61st AGM - (and Photo Competition prizes)
(+) 4 May 2018 Using Video and an Aurora Encounter - (by members)
(+) 6 Apr 2018 Berkshire Astronomers - (Kenelm England FRAS)
(+) 16 Mar 2018 NEW DATE Jupiter and the Juno Mission - (Dr John Rogers)
(+) 2 Feb 2018 Talks by Members
(+) 5 Jan 2018 Telescope and Equipment workshop - (Q and A with members)
(+) 1 Dec 2017 Xmas Quiz and Social - (Quiz Master Tim H)
(+) 3 Nov 2017 Wonders of the Deep Sky - (Callum Potter)
(+) 6 Oct 2017 Observing the Sun - (by MAS members)
(+) 1 Sep 2017 Gravity Waves - (a recap by Martin Dyer)
(+) 2 Jun 2017 MAS 60th AGM - (and Photo Competition prizes)
(+) 5 May 2017 Novae - (Jim H)
(+) 7 Apr 2017 Comets - (Kenelm England)
(+) 3 Mar 2017 Pseudoastronomy - (Stephen Tonkin)
(+) 3 Feb 2017 Members short stories
(+) 6 Jan 2017 Telescope Parade - (exhibition by members)
(+) 9 Dec 2016 (note 2nd Friday) Christmas Quiz - (and members shorts)
(+) 4 Nov 2016 Observing Planetary Nebulae - (Owen Brazell)
(+) 7 Oct 2016 Astro tourism - (David Phillips)
(+) 2 Sep 2016 Rosetta Space Mission - (Andrew Morse)
(+) 3 Jun 2016 MAS 59th AGM - (and Photo competition results)
(+) 6 May 2016 Build a recording spectrometer John Paraskeva - (2nd half Spectrometer results Alun Halsey)
(+) 1 Apr 2016 The Universe in multiple wavelengths - (2nd half Gravity Waves)
(+) 4 Mar 2016 Astronomy and the Weather - (Robin Oldman)
(+) 5 Feb 2016 Sungrazing Comets - (Kenelm England FRAS)
(+) 8 Jan 2016 (note 8th as 1st is New Year) Practical Astrophotography - (and Telescope Parade)
(+) 11 Dec 2015 Xmas Quiz and members shorts - (NOTE DATE CHANGE)
(+) 6 Nov 2015 The Big Bang Theory - (Kevin Pretorius)
(+) 2 Oct 2015 Starting Astrophotography - (short talks by members)
(+) 4 Sep 2015 Basketballs and Beyond - (Jane Green)
(+) 5 Jun 2015 agm
(+) 8 May 2015 (NOTE 2nd Friday) Talks by Members
(-) 10 Apr 2015 (2nd Friday) planned meeting replaced by - (talks from members)
Friday 10 April 2015, The planned talk "Basketballs and Beyond - Wonders of the Cosmos" by Jane Green** had to be cancelled due to illness, however a number of brave members stepped forward to fill the void and claim their '15 mins of fame' with some impromptu (and not so impromptu) talks
**We wish Jane a speedy recovery and hope to reschedule her talk for later in the year.
Dave H stepped up and announced his talk, "A mathematical analysis of Tidal Forces" - at which point the heckling began ...
David's first diagram was a 'force vector' representation of the magnitude of the Moons gravity felt by particles on the surface of the Earth. His next was a digram of the net effect, after subtracting the 'centre of the Earth' vector (highly magnified, this showed that the net force nearest the Moon was toward the Moon, but the net force on the other side of the Earth is AWAY from the Moon.
This led on to the 3rd diagram, with water on the near side (and far side) forming a 'bulge' toward (and away from) the Moon ...
.. and so we came to the 4th diagram, where we take into account the Earth's rotation.
At this point it becomes obvious that the tides are the result of the Earth rotating 'under' the bulges whilst at the same time we see that the 'bulges' are 'offset' slightly due to fraction with the Earth (with the result that the Earth's rotation is being slowed down - i.e days are getting longer (by about 2.3 milliseconds per century - which doesn't sound like much but does add up, for example, during the Precambrian era (some 600 million years ago) our days were only 21 hours long which meant we had 424 days in a year, although by the end of the Cretaceous (Chixulub) some 65 million years ago we were already down to 371 days a year)
.. and so to the 5th diagram where the effect of the tidal 'bulges' on the Moon is considered - because the bulges are offset, the gravity of the water pulls on the Moon, slowing it down, with the result that the Moon is getting further away from the Earth (at about 38mm a year !)
Note - another way to look at this is to consider the Earth / Moon system (constant) angular momentum
At this point, the heckling rose to a new level as Dave started to reveal the actual equations and, with what most of us thought was a lot of hand waving (especially when he multiplied 'by 1' and eliminated the 'too small to count' terms) ended up with a formula for Force (tides) = 2GMmr/d^3
(i.e. tidal forces 'drop off' at distance cubed, whilst 'normal' gravity drops off at distance squared).
By substituting for the Sun (in terms of multiple Moons, Mass(Sun) = 2.7 10^7 M and distance(Sun)=390 d) we end up with the Sun's tidal force == .46 times the Moons (i.e. the Sun's effect is about half). As a result, when the Sun and Moon 'line up' we get extra high "Spring" tides, when they 'oppose' (i.e. are at 90 degrees to one another) we get extra low "Neap" tides.
Whilst water can be thought of as a collection of 'point like' particles, that is not the case for more solid objects. Just as water forms two bulges, so a solid object will find itself trying to form bulges i.e. being pulled apart as the (net) forces on each side oppose one another. This bring us on to the Roche Limit.
With a bit more hand waving we arrive at the (I guess obvious) conclusion that the denser the object the closer it can get to a large object (star or planet) before it will be pulled apart. This lets us set 'limits' on the density of e.g. asteroids/comets that pass close to e.g Jupiter/the Sun - and either get pulled apart or don't. At this point, some speakers would have gone straight into the equations for black holes, event horizons and 'Spaghettification' .. however Dave was able to resist this temptation and decided to stick a bit closer to home by running the equations on Saturn.
Taking the density of ice, he shows that the Roche Limit is about 100km, whilst Saturn's rings are actually wider than that (at about 140km) - so why doesn't the (assumed icy) material 'clump together' and form Moons ? Well, as our Patron, Sir Patrick Moore, used to say 'We just don't know' ....
Tim H stood up next with a presentation entitled "Occultations** (90 minutes)"
**I'm not sure of the exact title, as my eyes (along with everyone else's) jumped to "(90 minutes)" and refused to go back ...
Tim started off with an explanation of how he discovered the exact location (latitude and longitude) of his house at a time when GPS didn't exist and Google Earth was something that could only be Science Fiction. This involved lots of visits to the local Library to examine the local Ordinance Survey maps and square grid paper tracing (this was in the days when the OS enforced their Copyright by banning Libraries from using a photocopier), followed by some calibrated pacing from the grid marks determined from the OS map.
Having determined his own location, he could now report on the exact position and times of 'shadow tracks' caused by objects (our Moon, the moons of Jupiter, Asteroids) passing in front of (occulting) stars. In those days such information was very useful in determining the exact size of our Moon.
How, you might ask, do you make exact time measurements before things like the NPL atomic clock broadcast from Rugby (now from Anthorn, Cumbria) or Frankfurt (Germany) ? Well the trick was to start the stopwatch as soon as you saw (or rather, didn't see) the occultation and then rush indoors, pick up the telephone, dialing 123, listen to the 'pips' and 'stop the watch' at the exact time (subtracting the stopwatch time from the 'pips' then gave the exact time of start of occultation).
Of course, when our Moon occulted a star, you then had to wait for up to an hour before the star reappeared on the other side.
Tim managed to restrain himself and called a halt well before the planned 90 minutes, allowing us a very welcome Tea break.
After Tea, we had Robin O delivering his 'What's Up' (Stellarium script = designed for v12.4), to an appreciative audience. This month Robin highlighted the constellation Coma Berenices, having a number of deep sky objects though no star brighter than magnitude 4.2. He showed the positions of the visible planets, Mercury, Venus Mars, Jupiter and Saturn and mentioned the Lyrid meteor shower due on the night of the 21st/22nd. To round off, he mentioned the retreating comet Lovejoy, moving towards Polaris.
Finally, Steve B stood up to announce the 'relaunch' of the 'Members Only' section of the Club Website. Members would be required to 'register' using the email address they provided when joining the Society. Once 'Registered' access would be 'locked' to their home IP address (Members changing their ISP or email address would need to contact the webmaster to get their location 'unlocked'). Further information on Registration is provided on the Members Only section pages.
This note last modified: 22nd Apr 2015 09:40.