NWGAS Minutes -- Saturday, 24th April, 1999

Richard Sargent chaired the meeting. Societies in attendance were; Chester AS, Macclesfield AS, Altrincham AS, Manchester AS and Liverpool AS. Apologies for absence were received from Southport AS, Salford AS. Ron Kelley was away, Tony Cross was ill and Michael Oates was attending a SPA meeting in London.. Richard appealed to those societies in the far flung corners of the region to offer to host these NWGAS meetings. They were poorly represented at present and it was agreed by reps present that to travel to Furness, Blackpool or Anglesey once in a while was no hardship for the representatives of the more centralised societies. Please let me know who is interested - Sec.

Minutes of the last NWGAS meeting held at Salford University, 16th January, 1999.

It was noted that the attendees at the Salford meeting had not been recorded in the Minutes. KJK apologised and said that the notes of that meeting had gone astray. It was also reminded that it had been intended to invite more distant societies to host NWGAS meetings, the argument being that if provision of a meeting room could be arranged, NWGAS delegates would be ready and willing to meet elsewhere in the region. Blackpool, Anglesey, Preston and Furness being obvious potential venues.

May Bank Holiday at Jodrell: Cherry Moss (good to see you back Cherry) said that Sylvia Chaplain had already made arrangements for the weekend and it was now too late to arrange NWGAS attendance.

  Campaign for Dark Skies

Quite unexpectedly, as CfDS was being discussed, Mr Michael Jones, Conservative candidate for Tattenhall, called to canvas Andrew Bate for his vote. Mr Jones was asked to join the meeting and the case for good lighting schemes was put to him. He left, somewhat shaken, after promising to take an interest in new lighting projects in the area in view of our concerns. The moral being, get to know your local council representatives and put your case directly to them, face to face. Perseverance pays off.

Richard emphasised the importance that all societies had a CfDS representative and to be pro-active as well as reactive. There is to be a new park & ride service for Chester and this in part included a lit trackway from the outskirts of the City to the centre. Already Chester AS had approached the engineers with a case to install proper lighting and although a reply had not yet been received, Richard Sargent was optimistic.

In further discussion, it was pointed out that light pollution was severely aggravated by air pollution and that in the countryside (in the example quoted, of France,) even nearby streetlights did not result in the backscatter that plagued suburban astronomy in the UK.

  Federation of Astronomical Societies

Regarding PPARC grants for amateur astronomical societies, it was asked if joint grants were available for members of the NWGAS. Liverpool AS are currently applying for a grant with which to buy telescopes to encourage schools participation.

  NWGAS on the WWW

Society                       January    February    March

NWGAS                           248        266        258
    Altrincham & Dist AS*        60         68         32
    Blackpool & Dist AS          38         50         37
    Bolton*                      48         50         37
    Chester AS                   63         75         61
    Furness AS                   42         45         30
    Gwynedd AS                   30         23         16
    Liverpool AS*                44         51         33
    Macclesfield AS*             32         89         92
    Manchester AS*               32         32         41
    Preston & Dist AS*           29         26         16
    Salford AS*                  32         38         19
    Southport AS                 41         29         42
CfDS                            921       1287       1401
SPA                            1397       1858       1608
StarWatch UK                    586        758        575
Manchester AS                  1494       1840       1961

* Societies that have their own web site. This list is soon to be joined by Chester AS

  Starwatch UK

  CfDS

  NAW96

  William Lassell

  Notes

• Bolton A.S. did have a web site of their own, but that is no longer there, so we are back to six of the members of the NWGAS with their own web sites. What happened to it-RS ?
• Chester A.S. now has much more information on the site including meetings for 1999 and CCD observations. Many thanks for this information.
• Blackpool A.S. page has some details about their meetings this year.
• SETI@HOME. Are you doing your bit to search for ET with this real-time screen saver from Aricebo's giant radio telescope? Download the programme and screen saver (only 750K) from http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu NB: You do need 32M of RAM to run it.

Michael Oates

Email:

Homepage: http://www.ph.u-net.com

  Total Eclipse '99

Representatives from Macc AS, Manchester AS, Liverpool AS and Chester AS are due to give public talks covering aspects of the spectacle and safe ways of observing and photographing the eclipse. What about other societies?

This is an ideal opportunity to liaise between societies with the potential of mutual collaboration. Please do this directly, there is no time via the NWGAS meetings. And don't forget the best eclipse photograph competition. Contributions to Mike Oates please for the web pages.

  Any other business and updates to these Minutes

2. Places to visit. The FAS Handbook gives quite a lot of places of astronomical interest but can you add to this local list ?

  Next NWGAS meeting

11am, Saturday, 31st July, 1999, at the Godlee Observatory, UMIST, C/o Manchester Astronomical Society.

K J Kilburn. (Hon. Secretary) 10th July, 1999