MORETON

ASTRONOMY EVENING

FRIDAY 30 JANUARY 2004 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM

Members of the Liverpool Astronomical Society, (founded in 1881), will display several telescopes for viewing the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, if clear. There will also be an illustrated talk on astronomy.

This event is free, and is open to all members of the public.

For more information contact:-

Wirral Ranger Service - 0151 678 5488

Liverpool Astronomical Society

Geoff Regan, Observatory Director - 0151 292 7165

Dave Owen, LAS Sidewalk Astronomers - 07778 454524

EVENT REPORT - Dave Owen

I arrived with Geoff Regan at about 19:00. About 10 minutes later, Graham and Pam Roberts arrived. Graham soon got busy selling LAS booklets and dispensing lots of information to the queue of visitors that soon formed in the doorway.

The inside of the lighthouse is very cramped and soon filled up with people waiting for thre slide show to start. Geoff eventually did 3 slide shows of about 15 minutes, punctuated by intervals of about 10 minutes to allow people to circulate round and, hopefully, free up space for other people to escape the cold damp and drizzly weather outside. I did a final slide show to round off the evening.

Steve Southern was able to assist Graham by setting up his laptop PC to display astronomical pictures to the people who were queueing by the doorway. Very late in the evening there was a very brief glimpse of the Moon, but otherwise the weather was far too cloudy to even consider setting up our telescopes. Jim Stacey had brought along his 5 inch Maksutov and I had brought my 80mm f5 refractor. Neither was seen in action but Jim was able to snap a few photos that are shown below.

As in our past 5 annual visits, the Friends of Leasowe Lighthouse were able to supply hot tea, coffee and cakes to our large crowd of visitors, about 70 we reckon. Not too bad for a very cloudy night.

Hopefully, our next trip to these parts (Wirral Country Park on Fri/Sat 27/28 Feb 2004) will be blessed with better weather.

HOW TO FIND LEASOWE LIGHTHOUSE - Maps from www.multimap.com

LEASOWE LIGHTHOUSE MAP 1

LEASOWE LIGHTHOUSE MAP 2

LEASOWE LIGHTHOUSE MAP 3