The following events are scheduled for March 2016

19th March – 11am to 5pm: Family Day at the NLO
Hands on Science demonstrations, Story telling in the Planetarium, Historic Telescope Tours, Safe Solar Observing,  Live Radar Meteor
Watching, talk about the Big Bang and featuring an explosive and electrifying lecture/demonstration from Southampton Accelerate:
“Ever wondered how the world’s biggest machine, The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), works or what makes up everything in the universe?
Accelerate is an interactive and exciting science show about answering those exact questions with the help of practical demonstrations”

The full programme has now been announced.

14th March – 7:30pm: A Cosmic Miscellany. A talk by guest speaker James Fradgley of Wessex Astronomical Society.

Open Evenings on 5th March and 31st March.

Also there are Sidmouth Climate Week events taking place in the town from Tuesday 8th to Friday 11th March

COP21: a new world order?

A talk by Brian Golding

The 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris was the culmination of an unprecedented year of UN activity, which produced the Sendai Framework for Disaster Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals and finally the Paris Agreement. In my talk I will briefly trace the history of our understanding of how climate changes, review the progress of the UNFCCC and the broader issues that prevented agreement at earlier COPs, before moving on to describe the interlinked threads that culminated in Paris. I shall conclude by emphasising the risks and challenges that remain.

This event will take place on the 8th February at the Norman Lockyer Observatory.

The NLO awards evening took place on the 11th December. The results of the annual astrophotographer of the year award were as follows:

Section Winners
Junior Imager: Victoria Bridges Galvez
New Imager: Steve Larsen
Interesting Clouds: Allan Brittan
Deep Space: Sharon Tubb
Lunar: Allan Jones
Solar: Steve Boyce
Planetary: David Strange
Widefield: David Strange

Astrophotographer of the Year 2015
1st. Sharon Tubb – Lagoon Nebula

2nd. Steve Boyce

3rd. David Strange

For the Observers Challenge 2015 awards were given to Sandy Moreton, Jan Hunt and Hugh Taylor for their exceptional efforts.

The dates of our astronomy courses for 2016 are now available.

Intermediate Imaging Course: 13th February
Introduction to Astronomy Course: 14th May (Updated – was 16th April)
Moving on in Astronomy Course: 10th September
Intermediate Imaging Course: 19th November

You can book online or download the postal booking form from our Education page.

The following events are scheduled for December

Sat 5th Dec 19:30 Moons of the Solar System
Sat 12th Dec 19:30 The Geminid Meteor Shower

Also, our diary of open days and evenings for 2016 is now available, as is the schedule for monthly lectures for the first half of the year. The diary for astronomy courses and online/postal booking will be available soon.

The observatory will appear in an episode of Restoring Britain’s Landmarks, in relation to the restoration of Belmont House in Lyme Regis.
You can see the episode on Wednesday 4th November on Channel 4 at 8pm, Friday 6th at 2am on 4seven, Sunday 8th at 7pm on Channel 4, Tuesday 10th at 1:05am and 11am on 4seven.

It is also available on demand using the All4 app or at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/restoring-britains-landmarks