Annual Meeting 2022
Finally, we managed to hold our meeting on Saturday the 18th of June 2022 at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. It's been a long time coming!
Members can expect the usual meeting report in a future issue of the DSO, but we'd like to thank everyone who came along, and all who helped out.
Speakers
We hope you all enjoyed the talks, and on behalf of the Webb Deep-Sky Society I would like to thank all our speakers.
Jon Gale managed to inspire a few in the audience, gain approving nods from many veterans, with his talk about Observing the Herschel 400
. He certainly sold out our stock of Herschel 400 observing guides during the break. Jon's a passionate practitioner of 'old school' star-hopping visual observing, and it's clearly more about the journey than collecting for him.
He was followed by a talk on 'old school' Uranography from Mike Swan. He took us on A personal journey from pen and ink to computer graphics
, starting with unsuccessful nova hunting, through his hand drawn charts phase, to the CAD based techniques he's exploited to great effect in his recent Atlas of Open Star Clusters.
After Lunch our President, Owen Brazell, spoke on one of his favourite topics: Observing planetary nebulae away from the NGC/ IC
. So what do you do when you've observed all the PNs in the NGC/IC? Owen has the answer, but it's not the usual Abells, rather try the Minkowski planetary nebulae for size. The pitfalls and the rewards were spelled out.
Rob Peeling followed on with the life of William Henry Smyth and the Bedford Catalogue
. A fine observer, a skilled artist, occasionally a bit of a rogue, and certainly a man to be feared if allowed the use of a rowing boat. Rob also explained his own bit of experimental history with an antique refractor, even if he decided not to use a oil lamp to illuminate his reticle.
Our imaging talk was given by Peter Goodhew, and he continued the planetary nebula theme in style with The challenges of observing planetary nebulae: past, present and future
. What to you do if you have a couple of fine refractors on a mount in a remote Spanish observatory? Peter fell into PN discovery with a fabulous Pro/Am collaboration. The results are stunning!
Another quick break before our keynote talk by Lord Rees of Ludlow (The Astronomer Royal): From planets to galaxies
. Lord Rees reviewed space exploration; addressed topics from nuclear physics to galactic evolution; pointed out how easy astrophysics is when compared to biology; and gave some interesting answers to the questions that followed.
Trade Stands
Thank you to our stall holders for turning up with their wares.
