Scotland

Star Stories Jan 2023

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Our next stargazing and storytelling session at Abriachan Forest will be on New Moon (Jan 21st) and we welcome back Glasgow Science Centre astronomer Steve Owens to guide us under the stars (or present a backup indoor talk on the planets). Our guest campfire storyteller Fiona Macdonald should also be in attendance.

If you booked for the cancelled December event your tickets will carry over and will be valid for the Jan event.

If you missed out on the last few events we have a February and March events planned so stay tuned. The February tickets links and event details will go up in the next week.

Many thanks

Happy Winter Solstice

/ Stephen Mackintosh / 1 Comment

Today the northern hemisphere of the Earth is maximally inclined away from the Sun, producing the shortest day. This is due to the axial tilt of the Earth, driving the seasons as we hurtle around our home star each year.

From here on, imperceptibly at first, our days grow longer in the northern hemisphere and shorter in the southern hemisphere.

This change in daylight is like a trigonometric Sine wave and will accelerate as winter advances, reaching its greatest rate of change near the Spring equinox in March.

The image I’ve shared was taken from inside one of the the passage cairns at Clava a few years ago on Dec 21st, a site with claimed mid winter significance. Sure enough light flooded into the back of the cairn via the south western aligned passage.

The truth is we don’t really know the real significance of these structures, and are left to speculate, sometimes more wildly than the evidence deserves. But it’s fun and captivating to imagine what could well have been ancient connections linking landscape, culture and the heavens above.

Seasons greetings everyone.

Moon, Fox and Fire at Abriachan Forest!

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Thanks to everyone who came up to Abriachan Forest on Saturday evening for our Moon, Fox & Fire event.

We had lovely clear skies for close up telescopic views of the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn through our big 200m reflector. Plus naked naked eye views of Mars and many bright stars. The clear conditions also allowed me to setup my video telescope for ultra close up views of the lunar surface projected onto an outdoor screen.

Abriachan headed up the campfire storytelling section afterwards, with some stealthy stealing games with the young fire guardians! As every my wife Judith prepared the home bakes with some very popular sticky toffee pudding cakes.

Our next event is ‘Dark Sky December’ on Dec 17th. Eventbrite links will go up soon.

November Star Stories at Abriachan Forest

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Waxing crescent Moon at Abriachan Forest

Join us up at Abriachan Forest on November 4th for our first event of the 2022 Stargazing season – ‘Moon, Planets and Fox & Fire!’

To kick off the winter series our first event will be a Moon and Planet special with the waxing gibbous Moon, Jupiter and Saturn on display for live binoculor and telescope observing guided by astronomer Stephen Mackintosh. If skies are poor Stephen will instead present an indoor talk in the forest classroom on the history of lunar and planetary observing, going back to the earliest ideas our ancestors had about the Moon and Wandering Stars.

In addition the Abriachan team will present ‘Fox and Fire’ storytelling around the campfire with refreshments provided.

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.

Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite HERE.

Stargazing at Abriachan Forest – November 4th 2022 launch

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Stargazing at Abriachan Forest will be back this year beginning Friday November 4th. Our first event will be a Moon and planet special with this season resplendent with bright planets in the run up to Christmas.

I’d also like to wish Scotland’s astronomer royal Catherine Heymans a speedy recovery. Some of you may remember Catherine had to cancel her event at Abriachan last February after contracting Covid a day or so before her appearance.  

Unfortunately Catherine is now suffering with long covid and last I heard was unable to continue her outreach duties. Catherine is still keen to join us as a guest speaker as soon as she can. Get well soon.

Tickets for our first event will go up in early October.

Tales of the Moon with Catherine Heymans

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Stargazing and Moon Observing with Scotland’s Astronomer Royal Catherine Heymans.

Join me up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing, Moon observing and astronomy with our special guest Scotland’s astronomer royal Catherine Heymans.

If skies are clear Catherine and local astronomer Stephen Mackintosh will host an outdoor Moon observing session with binoculars and telescope. Following this Catherine will present her indoor guest talk titled “Do Look up! Space Rocks and Killer Asteroids”

Refreshments provided plus binoculars for stargazing. Under 16s with accompanying adults go free. 

Catherine Heymans is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland and Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh. She’s also director of the German Centre for Cosmological Lensing at the Ruhr-University Bochum. She is an experienced science communicator, visiting schools across Scotland, in addition to art, music, comedy, philosophy and science festivals.

Tickets are available via Eventbrite or my Facebook page.

Tales of Dark Matter

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All the light we see from distant stars and galaxies is made from visible matter, yet evidence from the rotational speeds of other galaxies suggests dark matter outweighs visible matter on a ratio six to one. Image: ‘Our galaxy Over Achnasheen’, Stephen Mackintosh

Join me up at Abriachan Forest (a Dark Sky Discovery site) for an evening of stargazing and astronomy on February 25th with our first guest speaker of the 2022 season – Professor Martin Hendry.

If skies are clear Martin and myself will host an outdoor stargazing session, discussion and Q&A under the stars. Following this Martin will present his indoor guest talk on the very latest discoveries in cosmology, concentrating on the elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Refreshments provided plus binoculars for stargazing. Under 16s with accompanying adults go free. Tickets can be booked via Eventbrite here or you can reserve directly from my Facebook page here.

Martin speaking at the Science on Stage Festival

Martin Hendry is Professor of Gravitational Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Glasgow and is 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. Martin is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is currently a Trustee of the IOP and the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation. In 2015 he was awarded an MBE for services to the public understanding of science.