The ASG's observatory now has its dome installed!

More photos and a potted history of the Eric Tomney Memorial Observatory aka ETMO can be found on this page.

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"On the Moon with Apollo 16"

Robert Law will be talking about "On the Moon with Apollo 16".  The talk will cover preparations for the flight, training astronauts, landing site Descartes and problems encountered during the flight. Also featured will be the astronauts' activities on the lunar surface and how Robert remembered Apollo 16, which was the Apollo mission he saw the most off.  Robert has met all three members of the Apollo 16 crew and attended several events with Charlie Duke, who also visited Airdrie Observatory.

Biography: Robert has been interested in spaceflight and astronomy since the age of 8 in 1968. The first space flight he watched live was Apollo 10 in May 1969, and has followed every space mission since then and has met many astronauts and cosmonauts and regularly attends astronautical events.  Robert joined the Paisley Astronomical Society in 1971 and attended his first ASG meeting in 1973 and joined in 1976. He served on Council for many years, was the observing section and Acer Road coordinator and also served as a vice-president. Work commitments in the Coats Observatory later limited his attendance at meetings.  Robert was also was the honorary curator at Airdrie Observatory from 1982 to 1987 and from 1999 to 2002 - the only person to have done this twice!  In 1990 Robert was offered a job at the Coats Observatory Paisley to run public viewing with the 10 inch Grubb telescope and show groups around the observatory, together with planetarium talks. He did this from 1990 to 2002 after which he became a visitor assistant at the Mills Observatory in Dundee, and since 2005 has being doing public observing with the 16 inch reflector, planetarium talks and showing group visits around.  Robert is also an honorary member of the Ayrshire Astronomical Society and the Airdrie Astronomical Association, where he is the observatory consultant.  He has also attended the space shuttle launches of STS-59 and STS-89, regularly visits Kennedy Space Centre and is planning to return in January.

The lecture will start at 1930.  Watch the lecture on The ASG Youtube Channel

The Geological Society has made available its 2021 series of planetary geology lectures on-line at the following link:

https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/space21/lectures?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=lecture%20series&utm_campaign=GSL%20Newsletter%20Issue%20416

 


Dr Queenie Chan answers questions after her successful lecture
entitled "Meteorites and the Search for Life", September 2019
Image: Paul Makin

The ASG's free public lectures for the 2021-22 session are as follows. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic our normal venue at University of Strathclyde is closed and public lectures will instead be held online via Zoom.  Access links for the Zoom sessions will be posted below before each lecture.  Some lectures can be watched again on the ASG's YouTube channel. 

All lectures start at 19:30

  1. ASG YouTube channel