“Space Weather Woman” – Dr Tamitha Skov is to visit the NLO on January 13th 2017 at 4.30pm. She has very kindly agreed to give a short talk about Space Weather and meet space weather enthusiasts. All welcome.
Continue reading Space Weather talk on 13th January →

The list of public openings and astronomy courses for 2017 has been published.

There is no need to book for the open events, but please do book in advance for the courses

Calling all NLO members – come along to the Observer Group Messier Challenge!

We will attempt to find the 96 Messier objects that should be visible in one night between dusk and dawn at this time of year

Plans are for the night of Saturday 29 October  – Dave Alexander is coordinating so please contact him if you are interested. He will give full details at NLO members meeting on Friday 27th

The Norman Lockyer Observatory will be open from 11am to 4pm for our family day as part of the Sidmouth Science Festival.

Continue reading Family Day Programme for 16th October →

Everyone at the NLO is welcome to enter the Observers Autumn Challenge 2016

Notes are included on page 4 of the Observer Challenge document downloadable from link above. Any queries please see Dave Alexander, Helen Smith or Sandy Moreton

Closing date Friday 2 December

Our Autumn series of talks starts at 7:30pm on the 12th September at the NLO.  Our guest speaker is Laura Williams on the Aluna Project, the world’s first tidal powered Moon Clock.

Notice: This has now been cancelled

This Month’s talk – 9th May at 19:30.

While the Ancient Greeks gave the mathematical basis of perfect intervals in music over two and a half thousand years ago, there are still many considerations (not all understood) that influence and affect how we experience music today. These include culture, memory, familiarity, setting, acoustics, physics, mathematics and psychology – to name but a few. In this introductory talk (with many audio examples), I’ll look at just one aspect – the physics and mathematics of sound. From this, can we scientifically explain concepts like dissonance/consonance in music? How is this related to the Western 12-tone scale? What has this to do with MP3 compression? Or maybe music just transcends any crude scientific reductionism?

NLO members, John Bardsley, Bill Hitchings & Pete Youd have spent the last year restoring this wonderful 19th century Orrery to full working order. It was donated by Howard Anderson, a member of the British Sundial Society.

On arrival it consisted of a painted wooden base, the Sun and Mercury and the clockwork mechanism but no other planets. Pete restored and french polished the base. John who is a master watchmaker/repairer, worked on the mechanism,repaired the gears and made new arms. Bill restored the Earth and the Cambridge Design Partnership 3D printed Saturn and the remaining planets (this orrery also includes asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta).

It is believed to have been made in Germany circa 1895, but we would be grateful for further information about this remarkable model of the solar system.

The Norman Lockyer Observatory will be open to the public for viewing the Transit of Mercury
from 12.00pm on Monday 9th May 2016. This is quite a rare event happening just 13 times each century.
Using our telescopes we will be able to safely see the small planet transiting across the face of the Sun.
There is no charge for attending and visitors are welcome to drop in at any time during the day
(providing the Sun is shining!) to join us for observing this rare event.

You can find out more about this astronomical event at the British Astronomical Association website.