Stars in their Death Throes by John Eldridge

This month’s CAA talk was entitled “Stars in their Death Throes” by John Eldridge. John went over the life span of stars and how they go nova.

He mentioned that Supernova give off enough light to be seen for about 4 to 5 months, such as supernova 1987A and supernova 2003gd in M74.

When stars are born they are hot and blue in colour and are made of helium and hydrogen. At this point other gas and dust is blown away.

The Red Supergiant then gets a carbon oxygen core and then an iron core is created, the centre is then hotter and denser than before. After this the star then collapses down to  a supernova, at which point nickel is produced. 

We were also told that Betelgeuse is actually a Red Supergiant, so think of that next time your are observing it.

The talk about Supernova was very in-depth and quite complicated for me, and I was lost at some points, but none the less a very good talk with lots of good movies of the life span of stars up to the point when they go nova.

Starmen TV Programme on BBC4

Did you see the “Starmen” programme on the BBC? What a great astronomy programme, so good I had to watch it twice.

It was about us amateur astronomers and how important we are to keeping an eye on what is going on in the sky. I think my favourite part was actually seeing everyone’s astronomy kit, as well as the observatories that everyone had in their back-garden.

Terry Pratchett even appeared on the programme with his own bespoke observatory, the dome was actually made from wood.

It was amazing to know just how many people have astronomy as a hobby, and that so many people go to work all day and then stay up all night sitting beside a telescope.

Usually the only amateur astronomy on TV is on The Sky at Night, I would like to see more amateur astronomy on the BBC, perhaps we need a new Astronomy TV series which reviews astronomy equipment, teaches us the night sky, and instructs on how to use the kit in order to undertake astrophotography etc.

The History of Spaceflight by David Bryant

On December 19th I attended the Cambridge Astronomy Association Christmas talk, which was entitled The History of Spaceflight by David Bryant. The CAA also laid on Christmas cake to have with our teas and coffees and we also had an annual competition/quiz where we had to guess what 15 strange objects were used for. I found these difficult to guess, but after hearing the actual answers I think I could have actually won as most of my guesses were correct, nevermind there is always next year!

David gave a personal insight into the history spaceflight. He showed us lots of photos of himself together with many famous astronauts, including ten Apollo astronauts of which seven have visited the Moon.

David started by talking about the history of rockets including the use of rockets by the Chinese Mongols in the 13th Century and the Congreve Rocket in 1805.  He also discussed how rockets work, such as how liquid fuel and liquid oxidizer are pumped together.

He also mentioned the v2 and A4 rockets of World War II and how gyroscopic guidance was introduced. Werner Von Braun was said to be a major influence in US missile design in the 1950’s and 1960’s including working on the Redstone and Saturn rockets. It was also mentioned that Sergei Korolev turned the v2 rocket into the R7 rocket.

David’s presentation was good as it included a lot of video content of shuttle and rocket launches. It was good to learn all about the various NASA launches that have been made.

Overall, David was a very interesting speaker and very funny as he told lots of jokes, a speaker I would like to hear more from.