Dear Fellow Members,

This month of April (2022) sees our Society celebrating the 28^th anniversary of its formation and I am pleased to announce that this point in time finds us going from strength to strength despite the difficulties brought about by the pandemic.

Our new hybrid meetings at the Thames Chase Forest Centre are proving to be a success for both the general membership and Young Astronomers alike and this new venue has provided us with the opportunity to hold several outreach events for groups within our local community.

We remain mindful of the existing risk of the Covid 19 virus and as such continue to follow the current Government guidelines for reducing risk of infection. This includes ensuring adequate ventilation of the meeting venue, encouraging the wearing of face coverings, and practicing the basics of good hygiene

Please do not attend the venue if you are experiencing Covid 19 symptoms or have tested positive.

We do hope to see as many of you as possible in person at Thames Chase and to that end we would ask that any member without their own means of transport who requires assistance in getting to the venue contact either myself or anyone on the Committee and we will endeavour to arrange assistance from within the membership.

We have arranged for some interesting and outstanding speakers to talk to us over the coming months and are looking forward to you joining us either in person or online.

Regards

Les Jones

Chairperson

Havering Astronomical Society.

Change of Video Conferencing System

Can members please note that as of Monday 21st June we will no longer be using the Cisco Webex system to hold our online meetings but instead will be using the Zoom system from then on. Members will be sent invitations with joining instructions in the usual manner. Zoom is very similar to Webex to use but if anyone requires any advice or support, please contact enquiries@havastro.co.uk

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Please scroll down to see the 'Photographer of the Year Competition 2022' entries

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Wednesday 15 February, 7.15 for 7.30pm

Professor Richard Ellis will present ‘Cosmic Dawn: The Quest for the First Galaxies’

Richard Ellis is Professor of Astrophysics at University College London. A Welshman by birth, he has held professorial positions at Durham, Cambridge and Oxford universities, and spent 16 years at the California Institute of Technology where he was Director of the Palomar Observatories. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Australian Academy of Sciences, and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his research achievements in cosmology and galaxy evolution.

Talk outline: The first billion years after the Big Bang represent the final frontier in assembling a complete picture of cosmic history. During this period early galaxies formed and the universe became bathed in light. Hydrogen clouds in the space in between galaxies transformed from an atomic gas to an ionised medium of detached protons and electrons. How and when did all this occur? Recent progress with the James Webb Space Telescope suggests we may soon witness this dramatic period when the universe emerged from darkness. The motivation is fundamental: the origin of starlight began the chemical evolution which ultimately led to our own existence.

Wednesday 15 March, 7.15 for 7.30pm

Professor Simon Green will present ‘How to prevent an asteroid impact’

Simon Green, Professor of Planetary and Space Science at The Open University, has studied asteroids through ground- and space-based observations since his discovery of the unusual near-Earth asteroid (3200) Phaethon in 1983. He has worked on numerous space missions including Giotto, Cassini, Stardust and Rosetta, and most recently the DART and Hera planetary defence test missions.

Talk outline: Asteroids, which mostly orbit between Mars and Jupiter, are the remaining fragments of bodies which never coalesced into planets, and retain material that has been relatively unaltered since the earliest stages of the formation of the Solar System. Near-Earth asteroids provide a link between this primordial reservoir and the meteorites we collect on the Earth and are the most accessible Solar System objects for space missions. They may have brought the building blocks of life to the Earth, but they also pose a potential threat to life, being implicated in past mass extinctions. For the first time in the history of our planet, its inhabitants have the potential to prevent such catastrophic events. This talk will focus on the challenges in identification and characterisation of potential Earth impacting asteroids, methods for changing their trajectories to avoid an impact, and results from the first ever impact deflection test mission.

Wednesday 19 April, 7.15 for 7.30pm

Konrad Malin-Smith will present ‘Supernovae of the First Kind’

 Konrad is known with great affection by many as a founder member of the HAS, and a regular speaker to our club.  He is a retired senior schoolteacher of chemistry and physics, and was Head of Science for a number of years. He has been a peripatetic lecturer on various astronomical topics to adult education establishments (especially in Havering) and astronomical societies around South England since the early 1970s.  His interests include eclipse-chasing, astrophotography, DIY, classical music, church, golf and snooker. Avoids doing housework; and especially avoids dabbling with computers!