Herstmonceux trip

Well, it was a lovely trip to Herstmonceux yesterday evening, when 23 Flamsteed members attended the 10th birthday party of the Wealden Astronomy Society, who are based on the site.

Both Wealden and the Flamsteed are trying to build stronger links with each other, given the historic links between us, due to the history of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

We were treated to a very entertaining talk by Paul Money, about the 10 astronomical images that have most inspired him. The skies were pretty clear, so we got to use the Thompson 26-inch refractor, the Thompson 30-inch reflector and the 13-inch astrographic reflector, and got some nice views of the Ring Nebula (M57), the globular clusters M13 and M15, the double star Albireo and the Moon. A really fun evening out.

I did bring a camera, but completely forgot my tripod... not much use in low light!... so I only got one handheld shot of the Moon rising behind one of the telescope domes at Herstmonceux:

Moon behind telescope dome at Herstmonceux (handheld) by MikeMey67, on Flickr

Anyway, I'm sure we will be arranging plenty of further trips to Herstmonceux in the future, for those who missed out. Hopefully, we can arrange a reciprocal trip for the Wealden AS members to visit Greenwich in the near future.