Events

Walsall Astronomical Society meets every Thursday evening (except Christmas week) at the Rushall Olympic Football Club. 

We also have talks on the first Thursday of every month, where we have invited guest speakers presenting a specialist topic. We have had talks given by presenters from a variety of backgrounds such as:

• BBC Sky at Night TV presenters such as Professor Chris Lintott, Dr Paul Abel and Dr Chris North
• Paul Money from the BBC Sky at Night magazine
• Former NASA Astronaut Don Thomas
• Damian Peach, UK's top planetary sky imager
• Nik Szymanek, UK's top deep sky imager
• The Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Professor Albert Zijlstra 
• The Director of Science at European Space Agency, David Southwood CBE
• The CEO of the Institute of Physics
• Professor Carl Murray, the sole UK member of the Cassini imaging team during the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn
• and lots more

As you can see from the very brief list of speakers shown above, we've had some prominent speakers at the club. By a serendipitous and felicitous coincidence we were the first group in the world to hear a talk about the discovery of the Higgs Boson only a day after it was announced on 5th July 2012!

Talks range from how to make your own telescope to the physics of the latest discoveries. There are also in-house talks about observing tips, the latest astronomical news and the current objects of interest in the night sky.

To attend talks, please arrive at 7:30 pm, for a prompt 8:00 pm start.

All other Thursdays we open at 8:30 pm for a 9:00 pm start.

Not a good month for deep sky observing, hardly any darkness. Concentrate on the Moon or Planets. In the South there is still the great star cloud in Sagittarius, it is quite stunning in binoculars, but not unfortunately from Walsall (it’s in the Birmingham glow). Try a holiday on the South coast or the Med where the sky is darker (if they allow it). Saturn achieves opposition on the 20th, a good month for Planets and Meteors. See the What's Up page for more information.

The Sky at Night on Sunday July 12th July, 10.00 pm on BBC4 - The Lives of Stars. 

Also discussed will be why Betelgeuse suffered that strange dimming in 2019?