A very Happy New Year to everyone and hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

Looking out at the snow covered landscape it does look pretty much like we’ll be in winter’s icy grip for a few more days. But we do have a pretty well regulated series of seasons with little variation when compared to the extremes on other planets in the solar system. Uranus for example has seasons 21-years long with each pole experiencing decades-long periods of darkness. It is worth reading an article on the subject of planetary seasons at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/interplanetaryseasons.html … maybe winter on Earth isn’t so bad after all!

All the best,

John

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Our next meeting is on Thursday, January 14th at 8pm in Gonzaga College in Ranelagh. The talk will be on the Voyager 2 mission which completed a Grand Tour of the outer solar system gas giants before continuing on its journey into interstellar space. All are welcome and admission is free.

I will bring along another selection of books for sale to the meeting but mail me if you can’t make it and I will forward the list.

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Our next lecture will also be the last meeting I will be able to organise until after the summer due to other committments. If someone else can take over the reins it would be great but I have to step back for a period of time from any role in the SDAS. I will continue to send out an occasional e-mail with news of astronomy events, etc. but cannot make the meetings or have significant input to the club.

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I have an unused pair of 22×100mm binoculars which is free to the first person to reply if interested. The binoculars need a little repair however as the eyepiece bridge has cracked. The lenses, etc. are in perfect condition.

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NEXT IAA LECTURE, 13 January

The first of the Irish Astronomical Association’s public lectures of 2010 will be given by Dr Jorick Vink, of Armagh Observatory. His talk is entitled “The Most Massive Stars in The Universe”, and promises to be a fascinating subject. After all, the Sun is 328,935 times more massive than the Earth, and yet we know that there are stars maybe 50-60 times more massive than the Sun. But are there even more massive ones? And is there an upper limit? And how to these stellar heavyweights live their lives? Their lives seem to be relatively brief, but very spectacular!

It’s on WEDNESDAY 13 JANUARY, at 7.30 p.m., in the Bell Lecture Theatre, Physics Building, Queen’s University, Belfast. ADMISSION IS FREE, as always, and includes light refreshments. Everyone is welcome! Full details of the rest of the programme are on the website: www.irishastro.org

BT Young Scientist Exhibition

The annual BT Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS in Dublin runs this year from January 12^th to 16^th. The event is a brilliant showcase of all areas of the sciences in our secondary schools. Do try and get along during the days when the exhibition is open to the public. More details at http://www.btyoungscientist.ie/