Night at the Museum Event (17 May 2008)
Night at the Museum Event  held at the Zoology Museum and Natural History Centre on the University of Aberdeen's historic King's College campus. Interactive festivities included star and planet gazing with the Aberdeen Astronomical Society 

Dark Sky Observing Meeting (07 Sep 2007)
Five member of the society had a very enjoyable evening up at Dark Sky site on Friday evening. The early evening sunshine suggested good conditons for the dark hours, so we were initially disappointed with total cloud cover when we arrived at 9:30 pm. Patience paid off though as good clear spells materialised within an hour and we spent a good couple of hours with a few telescopes and one of our new 25x100 binoculars. 

It was good to see that the old favourites are still there (M13, M27, M57, etc.). I was pleasantly surprised at how many of these could be picked up with the binoculars. In particular the view of the Double Cluster in Perseus was breathtaking, as was the Andromeda Galaxy, M31. Just scanning the Milky Way through Cygnus threw up numerous delights. [D.Moody]

Phil Hart wins Honourable Mentions for astrophotos at prestigious "David Malin Awards", 2007. Phil Hart recently entered a number of his astro-images in the fourth annual David Malin astrophotography competition, hosted by the Central West Astronomical Society in Parkes, NSW, and came away with three honourable mentions in the Amateur Deep Sky and Amateur Solar System categories.  >> Picture of Phil Hart with David Malin

     
Photo Copyright: Phil Hart

 [More  http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/events/astrofest/awards/ ]

Observing Meeting, Woodbank (27 Apr, 2007)
Around 12 members of the society met at Woodbank and using three telescopes between 3.5 and 8" diameter viewed Moon, Venus and Saturn in the early evening event.

   
Moon through telescope, 
digital image (Paul Nesvadba)

Public Observing Session, Lunar Total Eclipse (3 Mar 2007)
A large crowd of people enjoyed a spectacular view of the total lunar eclipse on Saturday 3rd March from the Bettridge Centre in Newtonhill. About 80 people joined members of Aberdeen Astronomical Society for the event, enjoying a talk on eclipses, a tour of the night sky as well as a great view of the eclipse through an array of telescopes and binoculars. 

Earlier in the evening, AAS President Darren Moody had described what happens during eclipses, giving the audience a good feel for what to expect as the show progressed. As the Earth's shadow crept across the face of the Moon, the sky gradually got darker, more stars began to appear and the Moon took on a dark red tinge. At the moment of totality, just before 11 pm, there were even some cheers from the crowd that consisted of young and old as well as local and foreign visitors. 

Darren Moody added "The view through binoculars was spectacular, with the Moon's colours varying from coppery-red to yellow to bluish-grey at the edges. The Moon takes on this unusual colour as sunlight is bent through Earth's atmosphere to illuminate the Moon." Some clouds blocked the view for a few minutes, but these soon cleared leaving an uninterrupted view until the main part of the eclipse ended at 1:10 am. The enthusiastic crowd also enjoyed views of Saturn, the Orion Nebula and numerous constellations and star clusters. AAS member and Newtonhill resident Torcuill Torrance said "It was a spectacularly successful evening. There was a real buzz about the event.".

 
See more Gallery Pictures of
Total Lunar Eclipse

Dark Sky Scotland Event, Durris (9/10 Feb 2007)
Report to be added shortly.

This ties in really well with the peak that is showing up in early reports on the IMO website (http://www.imo.net/), where a peak ZHR of 110 is recorded at 1 am.  [ZHR is defined as being for a single observer (you're not really supposed to combine the counts of more than one person), but the peak rate of 110 agrees quite well with our observations] 

This probably ranks as one of the best nights of meteor observing we've had at AAS since the Leonid events of a few years ago.

Picture of  Geminid Meteor by Alisdair Farquhar 
14-Dec-2006 | Larger picture 

The group observed a variety of objects ranging from old favourites like M57 The Ring Nebula, Saturn Nebula, Dumb-bell, Pinwheel, Pegasus Cluster, M2, M73, M72, M29, M13, M92, M33/4, M32/110/31, Whirlpool Galaxy, Wild Duck Cluster, The Pleiades, and Torc's first sighting of Neptune. It was noted that the variable star Chi Cygni in Cygnus seems to have died down considerably. Bodes and the Cigar Galaxy also made it onto the viewing lists.

Everyone was able (and encouraged!) to look through other 'scopes and eyepieces, with many a "credit-card-damaging" mental note being taken. The weather was extremely kind, it was almost completely clear until we got too tired past 2 am. There was one small cloud that was hovering to the south but it seemed to get thinner as the night wore on. In all everyone had a great time - and Andrew has brought a new snack, the KG007 sandwich - its Meteor! 

Lets hope this is just the start of a great observing season.

We always knew that we would be battling against the moonlight to see many meteors, but we would have been happy to put up with it. As it turns out, complete cloud cover and drizzle prevented the three optimists who turned up at the dark sky site from even seeing the Moon. The peak of the Perseids seems to have fallen in the middle of a week without any clear skies, so there are no reports of any meteors from the Aberdeen area. 

Hopefully we'll have better luck with the Leonids and the Geminids.

[ See pictures of what we missed on SpaceWeather photo gallery  ]

[ AAS Logo with words - Sept 2007 ]

  
Photos courtesy of Aberdeen Journals Ltd.