Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing the Moon and other objects in the night sky, if clear. There will also be an illustrated talk on astronomy. ***** This event is free, and is open to all members of the public.

For more information contact:-

Ainsdale Discovery Centre - 01704 570173

Liverpool Astronomical Society

Geoff Regan, Observatory Director - 0151 292 7165

Dave Owen, LAS Sidewalk Astronomers - 07778 454524

EVENT REPORT - DAVE OWEN

A set of very poor weather forecasts persuaded us to abandon the idea of bringing a 16 inch telescope for this event. Me and Geoff Regan decided to downsize to our 4.5 inch and 3 inch f4 reflectors.

Too late. By the time we were committed to go, and were basically out of time, the weather seemed to taunt us with lots of blue sky and the promise of a clear evening. As it turned out, it only really cleared up at about 21:00, during the last half hour of this event.

Me and Geoff arrived at the Visitors Centre at about 19:20 to find that Graham Roberts and Jim Stacey were already there. Jim set up his 5 inch Maksutov telescope and waited for the sky to clear. Graham got busy and, with the help of the local Rangers, managed to temporarily control the infra red triggered floodlight that was such a problem at this event last year. Well done Graham!

LAS members Dave Bentley, John Simcock, Jim Lawler, Chris Banks and Tricia Banks completed our crew and with the help of the 2? Rangers we were able to provide two slide shows and a bit of observing for about 15 visitors. Chris and Trish brought their young son Iain and Dave Bentley brought his baby telescope - a 60mm refractor. He'd left his 4 inch rfefractor at home as, like me, he was convinced that the weather was going to be cloudy!!!

Geoff Regan kicked off the first slide show at about 20:05 and by 20:35 had got as far as Jupiter in his Solar System talk. I also did a 30 minute slide show that concentrated on images of objects beyond the Solar System.

During the overtime period, from 21:30 until about 22:00, before the car park gate had to be locked, we were able to get some good views of the waning gibbous Moon; but the increasingly clear skies had me pining for a larger scope, and several of us sped back to the LAS Pex Hill Observatory to view the Moon, Saturn and a few other objects with the LAS 16 inch Dobsonian.

Jim Stacey took a bunch of photos of this event, some of which are reproduced below.

HOW TO FIND AINSDALE DISCOVERY CENTRE - Maps from www.multimap.com

AINSDALE VISITORS CENTRE MAP 1

AINSDALE VISITORS CENTRE MAP 2

AINSDALE VISITORS CENTRE MAP 3