Feb. 24th 2006 Gerard Gilligan

William Lassell 1799 - 1880
Gerard along with others had arrived early and set up his Carrousel slide projector for the evening's talk about one of the Northwest's beer brewers who had used his amazing wealth to support his interest in astronomy. Through the presentation, Gerard patiently and eloquently painted a picture of a shrewd businessman who used the profits from quenching the thirst of labourers demanded by the industrial revolution in the Northwest of England to build a 9, 24 and 48 inch telescopes during an active observing career lasting over half a century.

Whereas astronomical research these days is the product of funding councils, university departments and collaborative work performed by numerous teams often geographically distributed across several countries, William Lassell was pretty much a one man operation. He made a huge contribution to telescope and mirror making, detailed visual observations of the Sun, the planets and by using Malta as an observing location set the trend for positioning obseravtories high on montains far from light polution. On the evening of October 10^th 1846 with his home made 24 inch telescope he discovered Triton, the largest satellite of Neptune. Although born in Bolton, perhaps he he shouldbe considered as "Galileo of Liverpool". He put Liverpool on the world map long before Liverpool FC and the Beatles.

If you live in the Merseyside area you can listen to Gerard at least twice a month, usually on a Wednesday between 18.00 and 19.00 on BBC radio Merseyside. Of course, you can listen on-line http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiomerseyside/ from anywhere. His next slot is on 1st of March.

Finally, Mike Oates had also turned up early and setup his box of tricks to make an audio record of this evening's presentation. So if you missed the lecture, you will soon have access to a high quality audio CD of it. Incidentally, Mike also maintains a website with more information on the remarkable life and work of William Lassell at http://www.mikeoates.org/lassell/.

January 25th 2006 David Ratledge

David is a member of the Bolton Astronomical Society (http://www.boltonastro.org.uk/) and has been well known throughout the UK and international amateur astronomy scene for many years. His website www.deep-sky.co.uk has numerous spectacular pictures, all of which he has taken himself. Browsing through just a few leaves you envious and inspired that he can do all of this from Lancashire. The website is very simple to navigate and I can recommend the “slide show” available from the main page.

His new book “Digital Astrophotography - The State of the Art” is apparently the first Astrophotography book that Springer (the publishers) has produced in colour. There is even a discount code available on his website which gets a 20% discount off the £22.00 price tag by buying on-line. I have only just started to read it so can’t really offer a proper review. My first impressions however are very positive. You know how from time to time you find a book that feels just right. You have a sufficient grasp of the vocabulary and concepts to understand and recognise that it is a book that will offer tangible benefits. I have done basic CCD imaging using a webcam, of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and the Moon. This book is an ideal stepping stone (with the aid of a few good clear, warmish nights over a weekend) I need to progress to more challenging objects. The twelve chapters cover a range of budgets, levels of expertise and provide a great deal of descriptions on the software tools and techniques to assist with image capture and subsequent processing. As the editor David has brought together contributions from over half a dozen observers/authors, the names of many you will probably recognise.

In late January the installation of a temporary generator was initiated, which on February 8th, provided electricity to the observatory for the first time since August 2005. I will provide a little more detail on why we lost the power in the first place and how the more permanent solution pans out in another posting probably near the beginning of summer.

First Light

Hello and Welcome,

You have found your way to a recently created blog for Salford Astronomical Society. Not a "Captain's Log" but rather a "Chairman's Blog". I hope this is a tradition with which future chairmen of the Society will choose to continue.

Through my postings here, I hope to record activities and events taking place within the Society and the wider astronomical community during 2006. I hope that members of the Society, other amateur astronomers in the UK and the public around the world will make a contribution in this blog via the “comment” option. Salford Astronomical Society is a small group of enthusiastic astronomers founded in 1971. Its spiritual home is the Observatory (housing an 18 inch Newtonian Telescope) in Chaseley Field located about a mile from the University of Salford.

I hope to upload at least one article every month. It will briefly cover the monthly lecture and a miscellany of other, I hope interesting or relevant, current affairs in the astronomical community. The blog will start off with January’s lecture but I would like to record here a few of the incidents from December 2005. On December 14th we had the usual excellent Christmas lecture by our honorary president Dr Allan Chapman who spoke as usual without notes, eloquently and with clarity to inform charm and entertain the now traditional large attendance. In addition to the usual filming the session was also recorded in audio by Manchester Astronomical Society’s Mike Oates. Within a week he kindly sent a copy on two audio CDs which are now available for loan by any member of the Society.

On the afternoon of the following day, the 15th December, Allan formally unveiled a William Crabtree Plaque on the junction of Broughton Rd and The Priory. Unfortunately I was unable to attend but all the reports indicated a successful event which included tea and coffee (with biscuits) attended by the lord Mayor of Salford, other dignitaries and some members of the SAS.

Gurbir