Eddington Astronomical Society

I have had an interest in the sky at night for many years but have never really pursued it with any great enthusiasm; having watched with interest the BBC programmes ‘Stargazing Live’ earlier in the week has rekindled that latent interest.
Following on from this the local Eddington Astronomical Society in held an evening talk on Friday 20th which I attended with my son. This was a very informative evening, where we learned about our solar system, and where we are in located in the Universe. The speaker Stuart Atkinson who is secretary of the society took things from the start assuming that we knew nothing about the solar system, without being patronising.
We learned about how stars are formed and the different galaxy’s that are out there in the night sky. We were shown actual pictures of the planets alongside computerised imagery of what the surfaces of the large gas planets of Saturn and Jupiter might look like. The actual pictures of the surface of Mars were amazing.
Stuart who is probably the foremost name in the study of Mars within the UK, has visited NASA which is by invitation only and had his picture taken next to the latest Mars rover ‘Curiosity’ (which is nuclear powered instead of solar powered like the ones that are there at the moment). The Mars spacecraft that wil take this rover to Mars was launched in 2011 and is expected to arrive on Mars during August 2012.