The final purchases are being made as AstroFest 2010 draws to a close. It's been a wonderfully busy two days, and it's been great meeting you all. Wishing you a safe trip home, and we look forward to welcoming you back to AstroFest next year!
February 2010 Archives
Patrick Moore and Brian May discussed their shared love of astronomy and music and took questions from the audience.
Meeting the authors of Bang!
My signed copy of BANG! (if you're still in the queue a word of advice - make sure the ink has dried before closing the book!!!)
The hall is filling up fast for Session 3 - it's a total sell out!
The 3D Universe is proving to be very popular at the Astronomy Now stand!
Sign up the Society for Popular Astronomy at a discounted price of £12 for the year!
Even our speakers are Tweeting from inside the AstroFest conference hall! If you're here and tweeting, use the #AstroFest hashtag.
Keith and I were just given a rocket cake by a young lady who enjoyed reading our Starlight magazine during the International Year of Astronomy. Mmmmm!
More on Starlight: www.starlight-news.co.uk
Well that's day one of AstroFest 2010 over, but we'll be doing it all again tomorrow - doors open at 9am for the exhibition and the talks kick off at 10am with solar storms and supernovae! We'll also be welcoming special guests Sir Patrick Moore and Dr Brian May in the session before lunch. Don't forget to come say hello to us on stand 16, too!
The Astronomy Now stand was visited by the University of St Andrews astronomy society today, in specially made AstroFest t-shirts sponsored by Astronomia (stand 22-23)!
There's a packed out conference hall for this afternoon's lecture programme which features William McKinnon on the Galilean Satellites, Mark Sullivan on the accelerating Universe, Jill Tarter on the first 50 years of SETI and Allan Chapman on 'Aliens: a history from Selenites to ET'.
Conference chair Ian Ridpath introduces the afternoon session.
Professor McKinnon kicks session two off with a grand tour of the Galilean Satellites - 400 years after they were first discovered by Galileo.
Test your knowledge with the University of Central Lancashire's Astro-quiz and be in with a chance to win some great prizes!
Hundreds of astronomy enthusiasts flooded into AstroFest as soon as the doors were opened this morning, eager to be the first to check out the latest telescope technology on display in London for the next two days. Entrance to the exhibition space only is just £5.
T-minus 20 minutes 'til AstroFest 2010 opens its doors to the public for two days of astronomy talks and three floors of exhibition.
17:30, Thursday: The exhibitors are putting the finishing touches to their stands - doors open at 9am tomorrow!
Unboxing all those back issues of Astronomy Now! We'll be selling them for 50p each or 4 for £1, so you have a great chance to fill in your collection with any issues you may be missing!
...something that resembles an AstroFest stand!
Here on the upper floor Optical Vision ready their army of telescopes, mounts and accessories.
Our international speakers William McKinnon and Jill Tarter are now on UK soil! Both will be giving two talks each; McKinnon will talk in Session 2 on The Galilean Satellites and Tarter on SETI: the first 50 years; and in Session 4 McKinnon will discuss the latest from Cassini while Tarter will close the conference programme with SETI: Where we're going next.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jill Tarter at the airport earlier today, and in the taxi back to the hotel I asked her about the future of SETI. "Galaxy Zoo on speed" was a phrase that came up - adopting the skills and interest of the public to search through vast amounts of data in real time, on the look-out for anything usual. The trick will be to make the data easily accessible - it won't be the same as the aesthetically pleasing images of galaxies that makes Galaxy Zoo so attractive. There are many other exciting developments for the future of SETI, but you'll have to come to her talk to find out more!
15:00, Thursday: Lots of boxes! Inside of which are lots of amazing telescopes, observing accessories, astronomy books, and more!
11:30am and the AstroFest exhibition is slowly being put together!
You can buy tickets for the exhibition on the door tomorrow and Saturday for just £5.
Stay tuned to see how the exhibition takes shape over the day!
Contacts:
Wendy Collins
Astronomy Now
Tel: 01732 446113
Keith Cooper
Astronomy Now
Ticket hotline: 01732 446106
Website: www.astronomynow.com/astrofest
Blog: www.astronomynow.com/astrofest2010blog/
THE UNIVERSE COMES TO LONDON FOR ASTROFEST 2010
LONDON - European AstroFest 2010, the largest gathering of amateur astronomers in Europe, will take place on 5-6 February at the Kensington Conference and Events Centre, West London. The two day conference and trade exhibition, organised by Astronomy Now magazine, attracts thousands of participants and features speakers from across the astronomical world.
Topping the bill at this year's event is Dr Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute. Tarter - the inspiration behind the main character in Carl Sagan's novel Contact - is a leading researcher in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and will give talks on both days to celebrate the 50th anniversary of SETI.
Also in attendance is Professor Richard Crowther, Head of International Relations at the British National Space Centre and a European Space Agency consultant, who will talk of the dangers of the 35 million pieces of space junk orbiting above our heads and efforts to minimise both the very real risks they pose to satellites, the space station and space shuttle, and to the lives of astronauts.
Dr Jim Wild of Lancaster University will talk about another threat from space: solar storms that could disable the high-tech electronic infrastructure that modern society relies on. Could a powerful solar flare send us back into the dark ages?
A highlight of the conference will be an appearance by Sir Patrick Moore and his friend Dr Brian May, who will reminisce about their shared love of astronomy and also discuss Dr May's book on a pioneer of stereoscopic photography, T R Williams.
Additional speakers include:
- Planetary scientist Professor William McKinnon from Washington University talking about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn,
- Professor Monica Grady of the Open University discussing whether comets and meteorites brought life to Earth long ago,
- Amateur astronomer Tom Boles who holds the record for discovering the most supernovae (exploding stars) from his back-garden observatory - 127 in all,
- Dr Mark Sullivan from the University of Oxford will look into 'dark energy', a mysterious force that is causing the expansion of the Universe to speed up,
- Dr Alan Penny of the University of St Andrews, who will address the size of the Universe,
- Dr Mike Edmunds of the University of Cardiff will delve into a bit of medieval history, exploring a new idea that Henry VIII's split from Rome may have owed as much to the theories of Copernicus as to his marital strife,
- Dr Alastair Gunn of Jodrell Bank will discuss eclipsing binary stars,
- Professor Richard Bower of the University of Durham will reveal what life would be like in a galaxy cluster,
- and Dr Allan Chapman, a science historian from the University of Oxford, will describe the history of the search for life on other worlds, dating back at least four centuries.
The conference programme is chaired and organised by Ian Ridpath, and co-chaired by Iain Nicolson.
The show also features three floors of trade stands featuring telescope dealers, universities, publishers and astronomical societies. Tickets to the lecture conference start at £15 per session, and entry into the trade exhibition is £5 for adults and £2.50 for children. Reporters wishing to attend should register with Keith Cooper or Wendy Collins prior to the event (contact details at the top of this release).
Tickets to conference session 3 are selling fast! Don't miss out on your chance to be part of the audience with Dr Brian May and Sir Patrick Moore, which will be followed by a book signing.
Here's the entry on Brian May's website, along with other Brian-related news:
If you haven't ordered your tickets yet, don't panic there is still time - just ask for your tickets to be held at the door for you. Decide which sessions you want to attend (http://www.astronomynow.com/astrofest/conference.html for detailed schedule) and call the ticket hotline on 01732 446106.
Updated travel info: Don't forget the Circle Line will be closed for planned engineering works on Saturday, but the District Line will be running as usual, or you can walk from other nearby stations such as Notting Hill Gate (Central Line), Kensington Olympia (District Line) and Gloucester Rd (Piccadilly and District Lines). See our 'AstroFest travel information' entry in 'Useful Information' for more details and maps.
