Even though our society is a fully paid-up member of the Federatation of Astronomical Societies, the annual FAS convention is an event we have never previously attended, primarily because it is more often than not held in places too far from Whitby to be reasonably reached with a ‘days’ time frame’.
For their 2018 convention however, the FAS ventured North, hosting the event at York University on Sept 22nd, so it was too good an opportunity to miss....and we very nearly did, given the relatively short notice publicising the event. Delays in emails sent out being attributed to the search for a venue at a reasonable hire cost, a factor which has seen a number of lecture meets (including Leeds Astromeet) fall by the wayside in recent years... [Read more about FAS Convention 2018 (at York University)]
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This year’s event proved to be another great success, even though skies didn’t entirely play ball.
Although not until October, it looks as though we shall be main hosts for the half term ‘dark sky’ star party event to be held at the Danby Moors Centre. Unless anything crops up this will be Oct 27th with a start time of 18:30h, perhaps 19:00h... 
Next month Whitby Museum is hosting a landmark talk on astrobiology (hope you got the e-mail) Charles Cockell, Professor of Astrobiology at Edinburgh University, will be talking about his fascinating work on extra-terrestrial life. The event is free, but you have to book tickets online... 
Our annual pilgrimage to Westerdale will take place on Friday Sept 14th. Setting off from Mark’s (Laburnum Grove) around 19:15h we anticipate to be at the village hall for 19:45h, allowing time to set up the telescopes should conditions allow. 
Sept 1st (tonight) will hopefully find many of us at Hook’s House farm Campsite, weather permitting. The event is due to commence at 20:00h, so we shall be travelling over around 19:40h... 
On Thursday 23rd conditions were again clear, however on this occasion the Bruce Observatory at the college served as our observing location. John, Keith and Mark ventured up to see how Jupiter, Saturn and Mars fared in the Cooke refractor. Proceedings were not as straight forward as hoped for... 
Saturday 25th proved to be a popular event, the conditions being far calmer and a bit warmer than the previous evening. There were certainly a lot more public around, which all seemed to head in our direction once the (almost) full moon rose above the youth hostel across on the east side. 