Jul.31, 2015

New Horizons: a three minute Wonder!

Wow, what a success story New Horizons has been so far, rewriting the text books on Pluto, and providing a wealth of insightful data on the likely makeup of other Kuiper belt objects, and the vast majority of data is still to be beamed back.

It could have been a very different story, as barely a week before New Horizons was scheduled to encounter Pluto, the probe disappeared from NASA’s scanners for around an hour, before coming back online in safe mode. It turns out a flaw in the software caused the system to crash... [Read more about New Horizons: a three minute Wonder!]

By Mark D
Jul.31, 2015

Sky Notes - August 2015

In this month's edition:

  • Planetary Skylights: Saturn in the evening, Venus at dawn
  • Meteor Activity: Perseids
  • August Nights: ‘The Dark Nights’ Return
  • August 2015 Sky Charts
[Read more about Sky Notes - August 2015]
By Mark D
Jul.31, 2015

Kettleness Visit

Members of the society travelled over to Kettleness on July 18th to host a star party for a visiting party of cub scouts; the Osbaldwick and Murton Cub Scouts, requested by their leader Julie Lund... [Read more about Kettleness Visit]

By Andi
Jul.31, 2015

Hooks House Farm Events 2015

Certainly one of our observing highlights on the WDAS calendar, we are hoping to host two events at Hook’s House this year; one on Aug 22nd and another on Sept 5th.

The Aug 22nd event will coincide with a quater phase moon, whilst the 5th will be a dark sky event. Should the first two dates fall victim to the weather, we shall try again on Sept 12th... [Read more about Hooks House Farm Events 2015]

By Mark D