Many thanks to all the members who came along to our September meeting at Kendal Museum last Monday.

Simon White started off the evening by looking forward to the first “Observing Night” of the new season, describing what can be seen in the night sky at the moment and reminding everyone to keep checking the blog for updates on the date of the next observing night. Looking forward to that, Simon!

Next, EAS Secretary Stuart Atkinson gave a round-up of the latest astronomy and space news, including the exciting discovery of a planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, and the timely discovery of the PHILAE lander on the surface of comet 67P, just weeks before the ROSETTA mission comes to an end.

After the break we were delighted to welcome friend of the Society JEREMY HUNT back as our guest speaker. Jeremy very kindly came down from Cockermouth at short notice (i.e. 24 hrs!) after our scheduled speaker had to cancel, unavoidably. Jeremy gave us a very enjoyable and informative talk about astro-photography, describing the equipment and techniques he uses to take his beautiful photographs, both from his own home observatory and when he’s away on holiday too. We were all very grateful to Jeremy for helping us out and everyone really enjoyed his talk. Several members interested in astro-photography were positively drooling at his spectacular photos!

Our next meeting is this coming Wednesday, when we have the pleasure of welcoming THOMAS ORMSTON, from the European Space Agency, as our guest speaker at a special out-of-programme meeting. Full details on that in a separate post on this blog.