Sunday Speakers 2012

Sunday 9th September

Once again we are aiming to offer three lectures. Prof. Paul Roche has kindly offered to give a second talk with demonstrations in the morning, the family oriented talk will be at 1pm and a third lecture will take place in the afternoon.

While these lectures are FREE to all we would remind people that the festival is our big annual fundraising event and ask if you would please purchase at least one of our raffle tickets! 

PLEASE NOTE: ROAD CLOSURE INFORMATION 
The southern end of Wartling Road will be closed from 3rd September for 5 weeks. When accessing The Centre for the Astronomy Festival please enter Wartling Road from the northern end i.e. from the A271 and NOT from the Pevensey end (A27/A259).

11am - 12 noon

Prof. Paul Roche, Director of the Faulkes Telescope Project & University of Glamorgan

Prof. Paul Roche is Director of the Faulkes Telescopes Project, the UK National Schools' Astronomer, and the European Space Agency's "Space Ambassador" for Wales. He recently established a new Astronomy Education Centre at the University of Glamorgan, where the Faulkes Telescope Project is now located. He still dabbles in research in X-ray binaries and massive stars, but his current role involves promoting educational and research uses for Internet-based telescopes, and developing better links between amateur astronomers, researchers and schools. For more information about the Faulkes Telescope visit their website www.faulkes-telescope.com/

Title: "The Faulkes Telescope" plus demonstration

The Faulkes Telescope Project has been providing a unique resource to UK schools and amateur astronomers since March 2004 - live access to two 2-metre robotic telescopes, equipped with research-grade astronomical instruments, and located at professional observatory sites in Maui, Hawaii (FT North) and Siding Spring, Australia (FT South). With a telescope in each hemisphere, all-sky coverage is available - and future plans will allow access to a truly global network, through the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope.

This presentation will cover some of the educational and research highlights from the past 8 years, and (Hawaiian/Australian weather permitting!) will include live observations from the telescopes. Being located in different time zones, the telescopes allow use throughout UK school hours, with users able to book 30-minute live sessions throughout the year.

1pm - 2pm

Dave Woods, HantsAstro

Dave is the co-founder of a revolutionary new type of astronomy group, HantsAstro, which started in 2008 and is now the largest observing group in the South of England. They now have over 300 members and the ethos that the night sky is for everyone to enjoy permeates throughout the group. Dave and his CoreTeam also organise various large public outreach events. HantsAstro's membership has become regional as a result of this easy going style of astronomy. Dave is also one half of the 2020 Astro Podcast and publisher of Look Up! e-zine and the AstroSouth Directory. Dave has also featured on BBC Radio many times and his Podcasts are downloaded in over 65 countries. A keen observer, he owns a variety of telescopes and enjoys learning a broad range of astronomical subjects. He also runs regular astronomy classes for beginners and astro imaging. For more information about HantsAstro please visit - http://www.hantsastro.org/

Title: "The Solar System in 20 metres"

Dave compresses the entire Solar system into just 20 metres - using fruit! This exuberant talk demonstrates the scale of our nearest neighbours and our relationship with our nearest star - the Sun.  Great fun and you can eat it after!

3pm - 4pm

Gary Palmer

Gary has been solar imaging for about 18 months now. Prior to that he was mainly a planetary imager and has been interested in Astronomy since he was a child. Gary now concentrates on imaging the Sun at high resolution and creating large mosaics of the Sun. He also does alot of "Solar Outreach" bringing solar viewing to a wide range of people and groups. 

Title: "The Basics of Solar Imaging"

This talk will cover different types of Solar imaging and how to connect and focus equipment.