Category Archives: Astronomy in Formal Education

The image is a cover slide for a lecture to Liverpool Astronomical Society on 21st February 2025 by Dr. Steve Barrett of the University of Liverpool entitled "Cosmic Rays". The background is a picture of the Earth in space, with cosmic rays entering its atmosphere. The cosmic rays appear as thin streaks of light in the very upper atmosphere which expand into narrow, feathery cones of fainter particles as they get closer to the surface of the planet. Overlaid in the bottom right is a multicoloured 4x5 grid which reads left-to-right, from top-to-bottom: STAR WARS HAIL RAIN RAYS to the left of the word RAYS, outside of the grid and above the backdrop of the Earth is the word COSMIC.

Monthly Meeting: Dr. Steve Barrett – “Cosmic Rays”

The February 2025 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2024-2025 session will be held on Friday, February 21st from 19:00 to 21:20. About This Meeting Please note that this meeting’s running order will be slightly altered from the usual, with the lecture taking place from 19:00 and Society Business after the tea-break. Please try to arrive on time or you may miss the beginning of a very interesting talk. 19:00 – 20:30 – Meeting opens, and lecture begins promptly, followed by Q&A and Vote of Thanks20:30 – 20:50 – Tea break in the communal area followed by raffle […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Prof. Philippa Browning: “The weather in space – how do solar flares affect the Earth?”

The October 2025 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2025-2026 session will be held on Friday, 17th October from 19:00 to 21:00. Members of the public are welcome to attend (for free), but please consider joining our Society if you attend more than two monthly meetings. Donations are always welcome but are not required. About This Meeting 19:00 – 19:20 – Meeting opens with Society business19:20 – 20:00 – Lecture20:00 – 20:20 – Tea break in the communal area followed by raffle in the meeting room.20:20 – 21:00 – Lecture continued followed by Q&A and the Vote of […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Mr. Sam Walton – “Space Weather”

The September 2021 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society will be held on Friday, September 17th from 19:00 to 21:00. Normally this meeting would have been the Presidential Address we haven’t yet been able to have the AGM, we’ve opted to do this meeting more like a ‘normal’ one, albeit online. Our guest speaker this month is Mr. Sam Walton, of the Space Plasma Physics Group, in the Department of Space & Climate Physics, in the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London, whose lecture is entitled: “Space Weather“ The Sun is an essential ingredient for life on Earth, […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Mr. Andy Briggs – “How to Photograph a Black Hole”

The October 2021 (William Lassell Memorial Lecture) monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society will be held on Friday, October 15th from 19:00 to 21:00. Our guest speaker this month is Mr. Andy Briggs who will be joining us from Spain with his talk: “How to Photograph a Black Hole“ Join Andy Briggs as he explains exactly how an international team of scientists and engineers acquired the famous image of the supermassive black hole in M87. This talk compliments the recent talk from Professor Derek Ward-Thompson on a similar topic.     Please note, due to COVID-19 this meeting is ONLINE-ONLY. […] Continue Reading »

Informal Talk: Dr. Jackie Bell – “Preparing for Astronaut Selection”

This informal and/or short talk will take place on Friday, April 23rd from 19:00 to 21:00. These informal talks are for LAS members only. These talks will be much less formal than the main meetings; there won’t be any Society Business section at the start, and they won’t be minuted. The exact format will depend on the individual talk itself. Could you be the next European Space Agency astronaut? Join Dr. Jackie Bell, mathematician and theoretical particle physicist as she shares her unique experience as a candidate on the BBC documentary series “Astronauts: Do You Have What it Takes?” (iPlayer […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Professor Derek Ward-Thompson – “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole”

The March 2021 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2019 – 2021 (138th) session will be held on Friday, March 19th from 19:00 to 21:00. I am very pleased to tell you that this Friday we have speaking for us Professor Derek Ward-Thompson of the University of Central Lancashire. This talk, which was highly requested, was originally planned for March 2020, however the pandemic derailed things. Our guest speaker will be Professor Derek Ward-Thompson, Head of the School of Physical Sciences and Computing at the University of Central Lancashire, Director of the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute and President of […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Dr. Steve Barrett – “Fiat Lux II”

The November 2020 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2019 – 2020 (138th) session will be held on Friday, November 20th from 19:00 to 21:00. Our guest speaker this month is Dr. Steve Barrett of the University of Liverpool, with part two in his series of “Fiat Lux” talks, entitled: “Fiat Lux II” In this second of three talks, Steve picks up where Fiat Lux I left off, covering how the nature of light has influenced the design and construction of optical telescopes.     Please note, due to COVID-19 this meeting is ONLINE-ONLY. Society members have been […] Continue Reading »

Monthly Meeting: Dr. Steve Barrett – “Fiat Lux”

The November 2019 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2019 – 2020 (138th) session will be held on Friday, November 15th from 19:00 to 21:00. Our guest speaker this month is Dr. Steve Barrett, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Physics at the University of Liverpool, with part one in his series of “Fiat Lux” talks, entitled: “Fiat Lux” A talk on the nature of light with measurements of the speed of light and the wavelength of light, and demonstrations of splitting light into its component colours and different types of polarisation of light.   A publicly […] Continue Reading »

POSTPONED – Monthly Meeting: Professor Derek Ward-Thompson – “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole” – POSTPONED

This event has been cancelled or postponed due to the Coronavirus situation The March 2020 monthly meeting of Liverpool Astronomical Society for the 2019 – 2020 (138th) session will be held on Friday, March 20th from 19:00 to 21:00. Our guest speaker this month is Professor Derek Ward-Thompson, Head of the School of Physical Sciences and Computing at the University of Central Lancashire, Director of the Jermiah Horrocks Institute and President of the UK Society for Popular Astronomy. Professor Ward-Thompson’s lecture is entitled: “How to Take a Picture of a Black Hole” You will almost certainly recognise some of Derek’s […] Continue Reading »

Talk: Galactic Archaeology (The 2015 John Porter Memorial Lecture)

The history of computer simulations of galaxies like our own Milky Way is dotted with remarkable successes, but an even greater number of impressive failures. This inability to make a model of the Milky Way is quite surprising, given that the basic physics is well understood, and part of the A-level syllabus here in the United Kingdom. Recent advances suggest that we might have finally made a breakthrough, making use of powerful supercomputers and novel approaches to feeding energy into the forming galaxies. Brad will demonstrate how we “mine the fossil record” of our simulated galaxies, comparing and contrasting the […] Continue Reading »