BAA Exhibition Meeting - Cambridge, 21st September

[Rick]

This from the BAA via FAS:

The British Astronomical Association is to hold its 2002 Exhibition meeting at the Cavendish Laboratories, Madingley Road, Cambridge on Saturday September 21st.

We would be pleased to welcome any astronomy societies to attend and encourage you to provide display stands highlighting your activities at the event.  This note is to invite you to contact me should you like to attend.

We have a spacious area at the venue, and should have no problem accommodating you, but I would welcome an early reply so that I can plan the floor space. There will be no charge to you, of course.

Could you let me know fairly soon whether you would like to attend, or indeed if you are unable to do so?

[Mike]

So is the Society going to attend and have a stand ?? If it doesn't cost anything or much then why not ??!! I'd be happy to help out with stuff if we do !

[Rick]

It would be an excuse to visit Cambridge...

That said, I'd probably go to the Exhibition meeting anyway, even though it isn't in London.

[Whitters]

Doh! The exhibition meeting is usually pretty good, even better if it is in a decent setting like Cambridge. But I'm going to be on the way to the Lakes that weekend.

[Rick]

Some more information about the BAA Exhibition Meeting in Cambridge can be found here: http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/exhib.htm

It's being held in the Teaching Laboratories of the Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, Cambridge, from 11:00 - 17:00, with the lecture starting at 14:30.

P.S. There's also some stuff about comets at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/

[ This Message was edited by: Rick on 2002-09-06 16:52 ]

[Rick]

The main lecture is "The Opposition of Mars in 2001" by Dr. Richard McKim.

BCF, Earth and Sky, Green Witch, Pulsar Optical, Martin Lunn (books), Venturescopes and Galaxia (globes) should have trade stands there, and a number of astronomical societies will also be represented.

If it's clear in the evening there may be a chance to observe using the 8" Thorrowgood and 12" Northumberland refractors. The latter is a very interesting instrument from a historical perspective. It was made by Airy, and anyone who's seen the 28" at Greenwich will recognise many of same the design elements in this scope too.

[ This Message was edited by: Rick on 2002-09-17 11:21 ]

[Greg]

I will bring it up at Committee meeting.

[Greg]

I forgot to mention it at the last committee meeting. Didi anyone go. If so would it have been worth doing anything? Did we miss out on a vital piece of oublicity?

[Delphine]

or 'publicity'even !

[Rick]

Yep, I went up, avoiding the blockage on the M11 and failing to avoid the one on the A10 near Royston...

I missed ths short talks in the morning because I didn't manage to get there til just after 1pm, thanks to the various traffic delays...

The main lecture, by Richard McKim, was about the last Mars opposition, during which there was a particularly impressive global dust storm. He demonstrated with evidence gathered from a century's worth of BAA Mars section reports that global dust storms don't happen at every Martian perihelion, but they do seem to have been more frequent recently.

His final point was that the next Martian opposition will be the closest one in a millenium or more, and he encouraged us all to get out and observe it.