Remember Whitby Regatta last year? The near heatwave, the sea fret hugging the coast, hearing, but not seeing the Red Arrows. Solar party events, where we seemed to wait, and wait for the Sun to appear, and evening star parties which promised much, but cloud saw that little was delivered. Remember? Well 2023 was in a curious way way very similar, but not as hot! [Read more about August Events - Regatta - A retrospective view. ]
In this month's edition:
August, as always, is shaping up to be a busy month for Star Party events...at least on paper. The Regatta, darker skies, school holidays, Perseids and planetary offerings, ensure a decent recipe for it to be so - weather permitting of course! [Read more about Star Party Schedule - August ]
Ambitious plans have been draughted for an observatory at the Danby Lodge Visitors Centre designed to capitalise on the Dark Sky Reserve status awarded to the North Yorkshire Moors National Parks in 2020...
Following the 'heat-wave' star party on June 24th, would the star party on July 1st take place under similar conditions? And would the success rate continue for the July 29th event? [Read more about Star Party Report - July]
In this month's edition:
Coming soon - Exciting plans for observatory at the Danby Moors Centre and the societies role in the project - details next month! [Read more about Danby Centre Observatory Project...]
Following a particularly fine and settled spell - would mother nature continue to smile upon us for the 'solstice' star party event in June, or would she snarl and bare her teeth... [Read more about Star Party - Report - June]
In this month's edition:
After a rather poor spring - too often cloudy, our first scheduled star party of the 'summer recess' on May 26th from the West Cliff coincided with an improvement in the general weather pattern. A few society members, and the odd holiday maker took advantage. [Read more about Star Party - Report and Schedule ]
In last month’s ‘In Focus’ article we explored how the system of stellar classification evolved over the early part of the 20th Century, to the systems used today. In this article we shall look how stellar classification is employed in the most important diagrammatical tool in Astrophysics, the H-R diagram.
In this month's edition:
June Meteors and NCC
The 'Welcome in Spring' Star Party at the Fox and Hounds - Ainthorpe, on Friday April 7th, unfortunately fell victim to cloud. [Read more about Fox and Hounds - Spring Evening under the Stars clouds ]
Monthly meetings of the WDAS occur on the first Tuesday of each month from October to May, college opening hours and holidays permitting. You can locate us at Caedmon College - Normanby Campus. We have one meeting left - on May 16th - not the 2nd as stated last month. [Read more about Monthly Meeting in May Rescheduled ]
Stars come in many flavours, temperature, luminosity, mass, size, element composition, all are factors which combine to indicate what sort of a star it is and where it lies on its evolutionary journey. A glance at a stars classification 'ID nameplate' can therefore tell us a great deal about that star. So, how do we go about understanding the spectral classification system? [Read more about Stellar Classification ]
| Sun | Rise | Set |
|---|---|---|
| Actual | 06:18 | 18:04 |
| Civil Twilight | 05:42 | 18:40 |
| Nautical Twilight | 05:00 | 19:22 |
| Astronomical Twilight | 04:17 | 20:05 |
| Moon | Rise | Set |
|---|---|---|
| 05:08 | 12:04 |
