Hi everyone, just a reminder to everyone here that there are two similar Astro Fests here in Ireland, the excellent and revamped COSMOS in Athlone running for well over 20 years and the Galway Astronomy Festival now in its 12th year.

This year we had an exceptional turn out of 120 people on a rain soaked and very stormy February 3rd, which really surpassed our expectations. We would hope for another similar turnout for our next Festival that will take place at the Westwood House Hotel on the 21st of February 2015 with the theme this year "New Worlds New Horizons"

Our view of the Universe has changed dramatically. Hundreds of planets of startling diversity have been discovered orbiting distant suns. Other astronomical observations have also revealed that most of the matter in the Universe is dark and invisible and that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating in an unexpected and unexplained way. New missions pave the way to a better understanding of our solar system and its cosmic interlopers including comets. Recent discoveries, powerful new ways to observe the Universe, and bold new ideas to understand it have created scientific opportunities without precedent. Some of these big questions will be addresses at the 2015 Galway Astronomy Festival with a host well known amateur and academic astronomers from Ireland and the UK.

Speakers

1 Professor Michael Perryman: "Measuring the Distances to the Stars"

Michael is co-author of the “Millennium Star Atlas” and “The Exoplanet Handbook” amongst others. Past involvement inc

• Senior Advisor, European Space Agency
• Head of Astronomy Research, Space Science Department, European Space Agency
• Project Scientist of the new GAIA Space Astrometry mission, European Space Agency sci.esa.int/gaia/
• Project Scientist and manager of the Hipparcos space Astrometry mission, European Space Agency

Daniel (Eclipsedan) Lynch, An Irish Eclipse chaser of 10 solar eclipses and has a wonderful catalogue of images and prelude to the March 2015 Solar eclipse

Nick Howes, Kielder Observatory, UK

Nick is a well known UK astronomer and he will give two talks, a morning talk and he will also give the Patrick Moore memorial after dinner talks

Main talk: "A Tail of Two Comets - Serendipity and Discovery"
After Dinner: "Under African Skies... the Astro Safari adventure of a lifetime"

Professor Susan McKenna Lawlor, Well known Irish professor from NUI Maynooth who will deliver a very topical and wide ranging talk about the Rosetta Mission and the lander of whom her team have built its important data transfer instrument

Dr Chris Watson, An excellent speaker from Queen University Belfast with a talk on the future visions of New Worlds or Extra Solar planets

Dave Grennan . A workshop by Raheney based and leading Irish Amateur Astronomer, Dave Grennan on the construction of his new Supernova finding telescope he recently built. Well done Dave

More info can be seen on our Face Book page at www.facebook.com/galwayAstrofest

Entry only €20

Thank you

Ronan Newman
Chairman
Galway Astronomy Club
www.galwayastronomyclub.ie

Hi

Great to see so much excitement for the Skelligs Star Party 2015 and well done to Roy for putting it all together looks like it has the makings of a super event along with the Perseids, looks like Nick Howes will be crossing the pond three times next year to attend Galway SP, Cosmos SP and the Skelligs SP.

We have a change of speaker to our 13th annual event in Galway on the other side of the year in February 2015. We're delighted to welcome Damien Peach who will be coming instead of Paul Abel, his talk will be a whistle stop tour including some of his best images from the giant worlds of the Solar System, as everyone knows Damien is a world leader in Planetary Astrophotography who has spent the last ten years documenting the changing face of our solar system with crystal clear images good enough to stand alongside those of the Hubble Space Telescope.

While in the afternoon he will also be presenting a 30 minute workshop on his imaging techniques during the lunch break. We will have other topical talks about the March 30 Solar Eclipse, The Rosetta Landing, the GAIA mission, African Star Parties and telescope building. All under one roof in one day and maybe the skies will clear to give us some views of the Winter constellations .

Full speaker profiles at www.facebook.com/galwayAstrofest

Orion over Galway Bay

Entry only €20

Thank you

Ronan Newman
Chairman
Galway Astronomy Club
www.galwayastronomyclub.ie

I don’t want to wish my life away, but I can’t wait for 21st February to come round, really looking forward to it. This festival is a credit to you Ronan and all those involved.

Mike

hear, hear, Mike.

The organisers of Galway, Cosmos, the Burren Star Party, and the SSP deserve huge credit for all the work they have done in delivering really impressive events. I've been to a few of the big star parties in the US and our little country produces events that stand as their equal. Not forgetting, we also had the Whirlpool Star Party for many years which Shannonside raised to an international profile, bringing the likes of David Levy, John Dobson, Steve O'Meara, Sue French, and many more well-known names to our shores.

Roll on the feast of astronomy for 2015!

John

R wrote:

Hi

Great to see so much excitement for the Skelligs Star Party 2015 and well done to Roy for putting it all together looks like it has the makings of a super event along with the Perseids

Thanks Ronan..

Would love to take all the credit, But I have a few
good guys beside me helping with this, Stephen Kershaw
and William Bean have been incredible... As for Mr Howes I reckon he
could apply for an Irish passport..lol

Looks like a great lineup for the G.A.F well done.

Cheers Roy

Interesting list of speakers there Ronan,
Should be able to make it this year all going well. .., if not too busy or away with work.

Hi

We have a new promo movie put together by myself for our February 21st AstroFest in Galway which is shaping up to be like in 2014 to be a cracker of an astronomy event



Link here to the full webpage about the Festival www.galwayastronomyclub.ie/index.php/archive

See an article about one of our festival speakers; Daniel (Eclipsedan) Lynch on page 113-114 of the January edition of the Sky at Night magazine

Speakers for Ireland's Favourite Star Party on February 21st at


1 Professor Michael Perryman (UCD): "Measuring the Distances to the Stars"

Co author of the "Millennium Star Atlas" and project scientist of the GAIA Space Astrometry mission. (FREE PUBLIC LECTURE)

2 Daniel (Eclipsedan) Lynch: "Light into Dark: Chasing Total Solar Eclipses"

Irish Eclipse chaser of ten international Total Solar Eclipses and his talk will serve as a prelude to the March 2015 Solar Eclipse.

3 Nick Howes: "A Tail of Two Comets - Serendipity and Discovery" and after Dinner talk : "Under African Skies... the Astro Safari adventure of a lifetime"

Amateur astronomer at the Kielder Observatory, UK, Consultant and Science writer

4 Damian Peach: "Worlds of the Solar System

World renowned planetary imager, Damian has spent the last ten years documenting the changing face of our solar system with crystal clear images good enough to stand alongside those of the Hubble Space Telescope

5 Professor Susan McKenna Lawlor: "The Rosetta Mission and its lander Philae"

Susan Mckenna Lawlor is the Emeritus professor in Experimental physics at the National University of Ireland Maynooth (NUIM) and the founder and director of Space Technology Ireland Ltd which builds instrumentation for various space experiments flown on ESA, NASA and Russian missions. She also developed a set of instruments to monitor the Martian solar wind on the Mars Express mission launched by the European Space Agency. Her talk will look at the Rosetta Comet mission for which her team built an instrument on its lander that will touchdown on the comet last month.

6 Dr Christopher Watson: Title TBA

Dr Chris Watson from Queens University Belfast who will provide the very latest up-to-date information on the fascinating area of research about Extra Solar Planets. At QUB he has lectureship position studying the impact of stellar activity on the nature and detection of extra-solar planets and has been busy designing techniques to help in the hunt for these New Worlds orbiting other stars

7 Dave Grennan: Building a Home Made Telescope

Dave Grennan well known Irish amateur astronomer and Supernova hunter based at his Dublin suburban home observatory; "J41 Raheney Observatory". He has discovered three Supernovae in recent years and more recently his third using a home built telescope with a mirror that he ground himself. Dave will present a workshop during the lunch break detailing the delicate steps involved for a person to make their own perfect mirror for use on a telescope.

8. Brian MaGabhann, Galway Astronomy Club

Building a small observatory is not all that hard. A simple roll-off roof design can be built in a few days with simple tools and materials easily available in your local building supply store. A dome is much more complicated but still can be done with more careful planning, Or you can buy a kit. Galway Astronomy Club member Brian MacGabhann recently undertook the task of building himself a small wooden observatory and during this 30 minute workshop he will go through the different steps needed to get your observatory off the ground.

Tickets for the event are available at the door from 9.15am, there will also be dark sky observing at Brigits Garden, workshops, information/trade stands and as bonus attendees will get a chance to visit the NUI Galway Observatory.

For details of the Festival (including accommodation) our homepage at www.galwayastronomyclub.ie/index.php/archive or phone (00353)868434003. We look forward to seeing you, hopefully under clear skies

Really looking forward to the weekend Ronan, especially as I missed last year's. Looks like a great line-up!

13 days and counting.. I'm really looking forward to my 1st astronomy festival of the year.. Cracking line up of speakers and lots more to do all day.

Cheers Roy
#ClearSkies

Just a heads up to any club reps/treasurers that will be at Galway next weekend. I will have a table selling books etc but I will also have my IFAS Treasurers 'hat' on so please, if you have not paid your clubs' insurance or membership for 2015 yet - do come visit me and hand over your pennies.
Thank you......

Bernie, will you be bringing some of those IFAS eclipse shades with you?

Ronan

I don't think they'll be delivered in time but if they do arrive before next weekend, Seanie will definitely bring some along.

Best of luck to all the organisers for the festival, and to all the attendees have a great time. I can't get there this year
Don't let those dealers take all your money with their smooth salesmen's talk.

Paul

Too late

Well done to everyone in GAC for running a great event, it was very enjoyable, great speakers and it was good catching up with people,
Also well done to the hotel for a great dinner and to the bar staff, got home at 4am lol
Looking forward to next year and upcoming events this year like Cosmos

Boy what a great event, well worth the long trip and always great to meet up in person and make new acquaintances. Excellent talks today and a special video message from commander Chris Hadfield to start our day I knew we were all in for a special time. Finished off with an excellent evening dinner and a few pints of beer, well what more can you ask for. Hats off to Ronan and the GAC crew in facilitating a great day. Glad the table quiz didn't go ahead as Terry would have won it on his own anyway, lol!

To all associated with GAC you all deserve a VERY big pat on the back.. A truly brilliant event yesterday, amazing line up of speakers (the Commander Hadfield opening was a super touch)..A big thank you to Ronan Newman and Brian MaMacGabhann for letting us fly the Skellig Star Party flag, it is very much appreciated.. Looking forward to 2016 already..

Cheers Roy
#ClearSkies

Congratulations on organising another successful Astronomy Festival. In particular, thanks to all of you in Galway Astronomy Club for the hard work and dedication. I had a wonderful time at the Festival, the exhibition was the biggest I have seen this year and the talks were impressive. What was special for me was meeting others and making new friends, the dinner and craic was brilliant. In my opinion , this was even a better Galway Astronomy Fest in all the years I have attended. All I can say for those who missed this one make sure you put this in your calendar for 2016, you will not be disappointed.

Eamonn
www.kingslandobservatory.com

Superb event and well done to all! From experience I know just how difficult and all consuming it is running an event like this and all I can say is it is hugely appreciated. The variety and standard of the talks were top drawer as were the exhibitors. The meal was delicious and of course, the company was what made it really special. Aside from the 'under the stars star parties' these kind of events are a well needed chance to meet and mingle with all those that are into the hobby, developing relationships and dare I say, life long friendships. I've been out of the astronomy loop for several years due to family / work and it was great to catch up and sort of kick start the interest again. Bravo Ronan & team!

Fantastic Galway Astronomy Festival this year and even better than last year’s show. The layout was much better and it worked well splitting out the function hall into two and allowing for the reduced noise and dimmed lighting for the speakers whilst keeping the stands separate. Quality of speakers was excellent and the stands get better each year although there was still space for more.

Congratulations Galway Astronomy Club - see you next year!

As a first-time attendee, can I just echo all the praise for this great event? Really well organised with a fascinating lineup of speakers.

To top it all, I found myself going home with a marvellous 8" Sky-Watcher telescope that I won in the raffle - thanks again to GAC and the prize sponsor, KTec!

Fintan.

Yes thanks to everyone who attended we were very happy with the numbers on the day, all the talks were really excellent even better than I expected not that I got to see them all. But my favourites talks were by Nick Howes, a very enthusiastic amateur astronomer and a very nice guy and Daniel Lynch, a very witty talk about eclipse chasing, The Chris Hadfield intro went down very well. Yes Kevin we hope to fill that empty space next year but thanks to Carl and Stephen and the others for their stands, Stephen's meteorites attracted a lot of attention.

A few photos from the event