Category Archives: Uncategorized

Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33)

Our own society secretary, Darren Swindells took this image of the notoriously difficult to see Barnard 33, otherwise known as the Horsehead Nebula in the constellation of Orion. The reflection nebula NGC 2023 can also be clearly seen at the bottom of the image just off centre. After Darren added the luminance data to the

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Stargazing at the Sportsman Inn

A surprisingly good observing this evening on Saturday 17th January at the Sportsman Inn on Redmires Road. The weather forecast suggested a clear night with heavy clouds and snow, which made no sense, so we rolled the dice and went along anyway. Hedging our bets on equipment we took the Celestron 72mm Firstscope mini-dobsonian and

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Speaker’s Evening ‘Astronomy’s Other Instruments’ with David Hughes

Professor David Hughes visited us in December to tell us about Astronomy’s Other Instruments. Professor Hughes retired from Sheffield University around 2008 where he held the position of Emeritus Professor of Astronomy. He has published over 200 papers on asteroids, comets, meteorites and meteoroids. Asteroid 4205 is named in his honour.

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2014-10-18 Astromind comes to Sheffield

The annual Yorkshire astronomy Mastermind quiz (Astromind) came to Sheffield this weekend, as usual hosted by Neil Haggath and as usual some interesting and mind bending questions. This year’s competitors were Marcus Armitage from Huddersfield, Mick Waterfield from Mexborough & Swinton and our very own Darren Swindells sporting his Sheffield Astronomical Society polo shirt. The

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2014-01-21 Beginners Evening

Our Beginners’ evenings have become more and more popular over the past few months and we had a full house for our Beginners’ topic “Jupiter”.

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Stargazing visitors

2014-01-11 Stargazing Live

We had a fantastic Stargazing Live event at the Norfolk Arms to the west of Sheffield when over 260 adults and children came along. They were treated to some excellent talks on Jupiter, Orion and Galaxies and a chance to see Jupiter, Orion and the Moon through a large variety of telescopes set up on

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2013-10-26 Astromind

This year’s Yorkshire Astromind was held at Mexborough & Swinton AS where Darren put in an amazing performance and came a close second, only 3 points behind the winner. He was encouraged by a bevvy of vociferous cheerleaders who kept the audience amused and Darren embarrassed! Very well done Darren and we all hope you

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2013-08-03 SAS invades Jodrell Bank

Despite a heavy downpour and a small detour on the way to Jodrell Bank, the Sun shone while we were there and many of us watched the huge radio telescope rotate around on it’s railway tracks.  We were treated to a talk about the telescope and spent a lot in the shop!  Overall, a great

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