Abriachan

December Stargazing at Abriachan – Featuring Professor Martin Hendry

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Join me on December 13th up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing and astronomy with Professor Martin Hendry. (ticket links in comments)

If skies are clear Martin and I will host an outdoor stargazing session and discussion under the stars (with potential telescopic views of Jupiter and Saturn). Following this Martin will present his indoor guest talk titled “Empire of the Sun”: the past, present and future of Solar System Exploration.

The Abriachan team will also be on hand to keep younger (and older) audience members entertained with some suitably themed STEM activities.

Martin Hendry is Vice Principal at the University of Glasgow and Vice President of the Royal Society Edinburgh. As former Head of the School of Astronomy and Physics he continues to be a passionate advocate for STEM education and science engagement with schools and public audiences. He is the author of more than 200 scientific articles and is a senior member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the global team of more than 1400 scientists which made the first-ever detection of gravitational waves – a discovery awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics.

Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.For directions to the forest classroom please follow directions to Abriachan Forest Classroom.

Ticket Links can be found here.

New Astronomy Season at Abriachan begins November 22nd

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I’m delighted to announce the first date of our 2025/2026 Astronomy and Stargazing programme at Abriachan Forest, which kicks off on Saturday, November 22nd, with an evening of outdoor stargazing and indoor planetarium guiding.

We also have guest talks planned later in the season covering deep space, the solar system and the Moon, with Professor Martin Hendry first in line on December 13th to discuss the “Empire of the Sun”: the past, present, and future of Solar System exploration. Astronomer Steve Owens will be visiting after Christmas for more tales of dark skies, with further announcements to follow in the new year.

As ever, tickets go live on Eventbrite and are promoted on my Facebook page.

Sounds of the Cosmos

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We had a wonderful evening of music and astronomy this Saturday up at Abriachan Forest.

The evening began with a unique premier – a live analogue synthesiser set from Nick Scroggie and Maarten De Vries of QRM, riffing beautiful melodies, sounds and effects in realtime against a montage of space and astronomy themed visuals I’d created for the evening.

Afterwards we had a virtual planetarium tour and talk on Supernovae, before finally getting some breaks in the cloud and heading out to see Jupiter and several nearby constellations and bright stars.

The development of the musical and visual concept is worth mentioning. Maarten and I discussed the idea of bringing astronomy visuals together with drone music about a year ago, but various other commitments got in the way of execution until earlier this year when Maarten and Nick agreed to test out the concept at Abriachan.

I developed a rough chapter outline for the visuals based on a journey of increasing scale through the universe. Beginning on Earth, then moving past our solar system into the distant stars, before finally arriving at the grandest realm of all – the galaxies. I sourced hundreds of images and video clips from NASA and other space agencies, downloading the highest resolution renders I could find.

During the visual editing process I used one of QRM’s ‘Drone Day’ sets for musical inspiration, timing the fades, pans and transitions to match the general pacing and atmosphere of the music. After a first draft I handed the visuals over to Nick and Maarten who then used it to develop some very rough musical concepts, split into acts to match the visual chapters .

It should be stressed that Maarten and Nick’s music was not in any way pre-recorded. The whole performance was live, with melodies, drums and base lines setup and generated on the fly via analogue synthesisers as they watched the visual footage. The only samples used were some spot effects Nick either recorded locally or sourced from BBC repositories.

I’ve put together footage of the event on Youtube and embedded it above for your enjoyment. Feedback from the audience was incredibly positive and we have tentative plans to deliver something similar in the future..

The next Star Stories event will be mid December. Look out for details appearing soon.

Ticket Links for Sounds of the Cosmos Abriachan Special

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Thin waxing crescent Moon above Abriachan Forest

Tickets are now up for the launch event of 2024 Astronomy season at Abriachan Forest. A special live synthesiser set from QRM will accompany the usual stargazing and astronomy.

“The new stargazing season at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) gets underway on November 2nd with a special musical themed event featuring local analogue synthesiser group QRM. In addition to the usual stargazing and astronomy, QRM will play a fully live synthesiser set against a backdrop of space and astronomy themed cosmic visuals.

Event format is weather proofed so please book with confidence. As well as our indoor synthesiser set from QRM we’ll have outdoor (or indoor) night sky guiding with astronomer Stephen Mackintosh plus possible telescopic views of visible planets.

Refreshments and home bakes available. Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.“

You can final all details and book your tickets here.

Stargazing Season Launch with Sounds of the Cosmos at Abriachan Forest

/ Stephen Mackintosh / Leave a comment

The new stargazing season at Abriachan Forest gets underway on November 2nd with a special musical event featuring local analogue synthesiser group QRM. In addition to the usual stargazing and astronomy, QRM will play a fully live synthesiser set against a backdrop of space and astronomy themed cosmic visuals.

Further details and ticket links for this launch event (and others) will be posted here on my blog or Facebook page in the next few weeks.

You can sample some of QRM’s live performances here. We anticipate the Abriachan performance to be about 30 minutes long with some Q&A with the band afterwards.

The Age of the Universe and Lord Kelvin

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Our 2023/2024 season of astronomy outreach at Abriachan Forest ended on a high note this Saturday with a visit from Martin Hendry, Professor of Gravitational Astrophysics and Cosmology. Since 2022 Martin has been acting vice principle at the University of Glasgow and was formerly head of the school of Physics and Astronomy.

Martin’s packed talk was broadly about the age of the universe, but touched on the age of stars, stellar classification, cepheid variables, rates of cosmic expansion, and the important work undertaken by female astronomers like Henrietta Leavitt, Annie Jump Cannon and Williamina Fleming, who were instrumental in helping us calculate the distances to star clusters and galaxies. A special tribute was also paid to Lord Kelvin on the 2024 bicentenary of his birth.

Alas, we were not graced with clear skies for open air stargazing, so following Martin’s talk we both hosted a virtual planetarium tour instead, referencing many of the clusters, galaxies and some stars mentioned in the main talk.

Thanks to Suzann for the Kelvin and Constellation witches fingers which captivated some of the younger audience members, and my wife Judith for the excellent home bakes. I look forward to announcing our new new 2024/2025 program in October. Stay tuned for details.

Calculations of the age of the universe using a variety of datasets and methodologies, including galactic red shifts and globular clusters have broadly placed the age of the universe at about 14 billion years old.

Stargazing Event Date Changes

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Due to heavy snow this winter my Tales of the Moon event (with Steve Owens) has moved to February 17th and our scheduled event with Professor Martin Hendry is now March 9th. The former event has sold out but the Eventbrite links for March have just gone live. Please see details below if you wish to book:

Join us up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing with guest astronomer Martin Hendry, professor of Gravitational Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Glasgow.

Event format is weather proofed so please book with confidence. As well as our indoor guest speaker talk from Martin on the Age of the Universe (and Lord Kelvin) we’ll have outdoor (or indoor) night sky guiding with astronomer Stephen Mackintosh, possible telescopic views of Juipter and more family focused activities with the Abriachan team.

Refreshments and home bakes available. Due to site and classroom capacity, booking via Eventbrite is essential. Admission is free for under 16s with accompanying adults but please inform Abriachan of any large booking requests.

Ticket links HERE