In other news:
Freak weather over the South East yesterday has been blamed on a unprecedented cluster of purchases of astronomical equipment. A Met Office spokesman agreed that their forecasts had not mentioned snow but put the blame on missing data in their forecasting model, "there was important data missing from our forecasting model ... members of the public really must inform us of such purchases, so the resultant cloud can be included in the model"
Yesterday's events follow right on the heels of similar events last year where sudden heavy snow followed the well known AstroFest event held in London in 2009. A vistor to the area, who did not wish to be named, said "I saw people leaving Kensington with expensive new telescopes and costly new cameras". MPs of all 3 main parties branded such behaviour as irresponsible and called for urgent legislation to restrict and monitor such sales.
Yesterday's weather could certainly have ended in tragedy - gritters were not on the roads and conditions were deteriorating fast - leading to very unsafe roads. The Government has now opened a new website,
www.shop-a-shopper.com, where members of the public can anonymously report neighbours and colleagues buying observing or imaging equipment. The slogan "Keep our streets safe - shop a shopper" will be used in a TV advertisement campaign due to begin next week.
Meanwhile the Met Office are urgently liaising with the organisers of Astrofest so that better procedures can be put in place for next year's event.
