Thursday 6th November
External Lecture by Dr Ian Whittaker from Nottingham Trent University on Solar Physics
Dr Ian Whittaker works in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Nottingham Trent University.
Dr Whittaker is a Senior Lecturer in Physics at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), specialising in space physics, science communication, and scholarship. He holds a Master's in Physics with Space Science and Technology from the University of Leicester and completed his PhD at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, focusing on hydrogen and oxygen escape from Venus’s atmosphere using data from the Venus Express satellite.
His postdoctoral research has spanned diverse fields including cancer research, solar monitoring, radiation belt dynamics, meteorology, and medical physics, with notable work in Antarctica at Scott Base. He contributed to the ESA/CAS SMILE mission through his research on solar wind X-ray charge exchange.
Dr Whittaker is a prolific science communicator, having authored over 60 public science articles with a readership exceeding 4 million on The Conversation, where he is NTU’s most-read author. His work has earned him the Sir Paul Curran Award for Academic Communication and led to features in national newspapers, BBC Frontiers magazine, and Physiology Today, along with numerous media interviews.
At NTU, he teaches astrophysics, space science, and forensic image processing, and serves as the physics admissions tutor and a member of the PAMS scholarship group. His excellence in teaching has been recognised with the Vice Chancellor’s Outstanding Teaching Award and the NTSU Teaching Award for Science and Technology.
Thursday 13th November
Proposed club Radio Astronomy projects for Walsall Astro Society by Dr Andrew Thornett
Dr Andrew Thornett will deliver a talk about the Radio Astronomy options for our club and the equipment required.
Dr Andrew Thornett is a retired General Medical Practitioner in Birmingham with an eclectic interest and passion for all things astronomy, and special interests in radio astronomy and solar astronomy.
Andrew's biography reads:
Dr Andrew Thornett is a retired General Medical Practitioner in Birmingham with an eclectic interest and passion for all things astronomy. He is a member of the BAA Radio Astronomy Group and Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers in the USA, and of Rosliston Astronomy Group in Derbyshire, and the Astronomical Society of Penang in Malaysia.
He has special intersts in radio astronomy and solar astronomy - he considers himself to be one of a new breed of radio astronomer who don't understand half of what is going on but finds that modern technology and software allows him to get it working and to achieve amazing things! He then spends his time learning as much as he can and he is keen to encourage other people to consider this part of the hobby.
From the solar perspective, using his Daystar Quark Filters, he loves to photograph the Sun and produce solar animations, and he has recently acquired a spectrohelioscope and is amazed by what this technology can offer amateurs, especially as it can be largely 3D-printed at home!!
His message: You can do it and you can do it even with loads of cloud and light pollution from your suburban or urban home, with minimal knowledge and for reasonable cost! You just need the passion!
We look forward to seeing you!
Regards
Walsall Astronomical Society
