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| 28-Feb | Greg Smye-Rumsby - If Venus had a Moon Bredhurst Village Hall  The planet Venus is a fascinating world, a world that should by all accounts be a near twin of the Earth with continents and oceans undergoing seasonal changes and possessing a moon. However, the reality is very different. Its surface is completely blanketed by dense opaque cloud making observation of surface features impossible. Those starting out to follow their passion in astronomy often take in the changing aspect of Saturns rings, the storms within Jupiter’s clouds and of course the surface features of Mars as it spins slowly on its axis. Venus is not one of the planets favoured by most amateurs BUT what if it had a moon? SPEAKER DETAILSGreg Smye-Rumsby  Greg Smye-Rumsby has essentially two astronomical careers. Firstly, as a specialist planetarium presenter for the Royal Observatory Greenwich. This consists of presenting planetarium shows to schools and public alike but also providing teaching artworks and slides for the many school and public courses. He has also been asked to cover corporate evenings, TV presentations and provide engaging discourses for the ROG winter programme ‘An Evening with the Stars’. Secondly, Greg is a supplier of diagrams and celestial maps for Astronomy Now magazine and has also written a few articles occasionally. | |
| 14-Mar | MKAS Telescope Clinic Bredhurst Village Hall  This meeting will give MKAS members and visitors the chance to address problems that have arisen during set-up and testing of their new (and perhaps older) telescopes. They will be able to ask for telescope tips and solutions to problems from experienced MKAS Astronomers with hands-on experience with their type of telescopes. The meeting will start with a short presentation by Doug Edworthy giving an overview of the different equipment types readily available to amateur astronomers, both in terms of telescopes and appropriate mounts. This will help those thinking of buying their first telescope or prior to upgrading their existing equipment to identify the 'kit' most appropriate to meeting their needs. The rest of the evening will be devoted to a practical session, dedicated to solving particular problems, or demonstrating how to set up equipment. Members are invited to bring their telescopes along to the event, while proficient MKAS members will give advice on specific problems. Other MKAS Members and all visitors would be expected to benefit from listening in on the advice given. In order to plan the evening most efficiently, members intending to bring "problem telescopes" are invited to describe their equipment in advance and to outline their specific problems ahead of the meeting. Weather permitting, it would be hoped that successful operation of some of the telescopes could be demonstrated outside, following the talks and demonstrations. Please email your questions / problems in advance to: membersec@midkentastro.org.uk. SPEAKER DETAILSDoug Edworthy  Doug's passion for all things to do with space was triggered as a small child as he listened to the beep-beep sounds of Sputnik 1 on the radio as the 'first man-made moon' circled the globe. By the time he was ten he was into amateur radio short-wave listening, building crystal sets, thermionic valve TRF receivers and, as the technology became available, transistorised superheterodyne receivers. After college, he worked for ITT Consumer Products and then moved to Millbank Electronics in Uckfield. During his time there Doug became involved in induction loop technology for hearing-aid users and in the writing of British Standard 7594. He later became the 'UK expert' for several related International Electrotechnical Committee standards. Doug eventually found himself as both a Technical Director and a Shareholder of Millbank and discovered a talent for quality management systems, taking the company through BS 5750:part 1 certification. He also spent time as President of the Institute of Sound & Communications Engineers and was awarded Honorary Fellowship in 2005. In 1994 Doug set up his own consultancy business in audio electronics and in business management systems and undertook a 5-year OU course which resulted in a Post-Graduate Diploma in Computing. | |
| 28-Mar | Jan-Peter Muller - Mapping landscape features on the Earth, Moon and Mars from orbit Bredhurst Village Hall  Prof Muller will describe how landscape features on the Earth, Moon and Mars can be mapped from orbiting satellites using AI and a virtual 3D. He will compare 3D views generated from orbit with those from the Mars2020 rover to show the potential and limitations of armchair exploration SPEAKER DETAILSProf Jan-Peter Muller  Jan-Peter Muller received a BSc. degree in Physics with honours from Sheffield University in 1976, an MSc. in Atmospheric Physics and Dynamics from Imperial College London in 1977 and a PhD. in Planetary Meteorology from University College London in 1982, during which time he spent 1979 as a NASA Intern in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working with the Voyager Imaging Science Team. Prof. Muller is Emeritus Professor at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory in the Dept. of Space and Climate Physics, University College London. He is a Co-Investigator on the ESA Mars Express HRSC and ESA Harmony Thermal-IR multi-angle mission launching in the late 2020s. Prof. Muller's research interests include imaging sensor technology development for comparative planetology and exploration especially for Cubesats, the development and application of deep learning to applications such as cloud detection, cloud-top wind-field mapping, very high resolution surface albedo mapping and super-resolution restoration. He has been an active leader in the field of automated mapping of Earth, Moon, Mars and Jupiter and image interpretation for the last 20 years. This has included the development of advanced algorithms for automated 3D surface and solid earth deformation measurement and automated extraction of global environmental information. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/mssl/people/prof-jan-peter-muller. | |
| 11-Apr | Prof. Rodney Buckland - Topic TBC Bredhurst Village Hall SPEAKER DETAILSRodney Buckland  Rodney was a digital computing engineer in NASA's Deep Space Network in the late 60s, before becoming an expedition scientist in Antarctica and manager of science mission studies at the European Space Agency. In recent years, he has been a Research Fellow and part-time Lecturer at The Open University, and is one of the founders of Lunar Mission One. He is currently supervising students carrying out research projects in the Open University's MSc Space Science and Technology programme. | |
| 25-Apr | ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Bredhurst Village Hall  This is your chance to discuss how the Society operates and to make suggestions about future activities, to appprove the annual accounts and to elect the Committee for the forthcoming year. Any Member can put themselves forward for election to the Committee. Indeed we would welcome some new blood so please do not be shy in volunteering. Please send any proposals for changes to society business to secretary@midkentastro.org.uk by no later than 11 April 2025. The Constitution can be viewed and downloaded from HERE. The AGM is open to all MKAS Members and Visitors, however only Members are entitled to vote. Please download and review the following documents: [2 of 3 documents currently available] - Agenda for the 2025 AGM - Minutes of the 2024 AGM (Draft) - Committee Roles and Responsibilities The following reports will been sent to members in advance of the AGM: - MKAS Accounts 2024-2025 The following reports will be presented at the AGM: - Treasurer's Report and Audited Accounts - Chairman's Report - Programme Secretary's Report - Membership Secretary's Report - GP20 update | |
| 09-May | Prof. Michael Smith - The heart and lungs of a galaxy: tensions and hypertensions in the Universe. Bredhurst Village Hall  The evolution of the Universe and the large scale structure therein are the subjects of increasing tension. These issues will be discussed and we will ask what has caused the very early galaxies to appear so fast, how the gas in between got enriched and then how the galaxy growth got quenched. Research into the prime suspect, the supermassive black hole at the heart could hold the key. A means by which the black hole can solve some of these issues by ejecting high pressure jets into expanding and contracting lungs will be explored. SPEAKER DETAILSProf Michael Smith  Born in Ipswich, Professor Smith was educated in England and Australia before obtaining a first class honours degree in Mathematics from Imperial College, London, in 1976, and a doctorate in Astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 1979. He went on to work at higher education institutions in Illinois, Maryland and Iowa, USA; Leicester Edinburgh and Armagh in the UK, Leiden, The Netherlands, Trieste, Italy and Heidelberg in Germany, where he held a von Humboldt Fellowship. Prof. Smith is an Associate of The Royal College of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a member of the International Astronomical Union. | |
| 30-May | Speaker & Topic TBC Bredhurst Village Hall | |
| 13-Jun | Arthur Fentaman - Astrophotography using Smartphones Bredhurst Village Hall  Arthur Fentaman will give an overview of how to take images of the night sky using mobile phones, followed by an extended Q&A session. SPEAKER DETAILSArthur Fentaman  Arthur is a published astrophotographer and active MKAS member. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2020. | |
| 27-Jun | Prof. David Southwood - Electromagnetic threats from the Sun Bredhurst Village Hall  SPEAKER DETAILSProf David Southwood CBE  David was formerly the Director of Science and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency (2001-2011) and President of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) 2012-2014. He received a CBE in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours. Before going to ESA, he was a space scientist at Imperial College, London. At ESA, he oversaw building and launching spacecraft to Venus, Mars and the Moon as well as the Rosetta probe with lander Philae to comet Churymuov-Gerasimenko, in addition to several major space telescopes. He led the team that landed a European probe on Saturn's largest moon Titan in 2005. An instrument he built at Imperial operated in orbit around the planet Saturn aboard the NASA Cassini spacecraft from 2004-2017. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and won the 2011 Sir Arthur C. Clarke award for space achievement. He was chairman of the Steering Board of the UK Space Agency 2016-2019. He is currently a senior research investigator at Imperial College. | |
| 11-Jul | Jeremy Phillips - Going over to the Dark Side - remote imaging Bredhurst Village Hall Abstract to follow. SPEAKER DETAILSJeremy Phillips  Until retirement, Jeremy worked as an executive producer making documentaries and factual programmes for the Discovery TV network. He first got interested in astronomy at 11 years old when his father bought him a second hand 3in refractor telescope. After getting up at 3am, he pointed it at the brightest object in the sky and couldn't believe what he saw. Jeremy said "it actually had rings. This was Saturn of course, and it blew me away. From that moment I was hooked. Through astrophotography I still get the same buzz today." During the night Jeremy looks at the sky, often travelling several hours to a dark sky location, but by day he enjoys life with his wife and two daughters at his our home in south west London. | |
| 25-Jul | Speaker & Topic or MKAS Summer Social - TBC Bredhurst Village Hall Details to follow. |
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