A couple of talks

Last Tuesday, 19th February I was honoured to talk to the youth sections of the British Computer Society and the Institution of Engineering & Technology in Belfast. I spoke for an hour on "IT's Impact on Amateur Astronomy" including practical demonstrations of driving a GoTo telescope from a PC, imaging with a webcam and image processing.

The audience seemed to appreciate it as I was asked a good few questions afterwards!

Here's the promotional poster....



The slides from the presentation are here...
IT's Impact on Amateur Astronomy

The BCS writeup is here...



The following day I attended another excellent lecture at the IAA. Prof Chris Dainty from the National University of Ireland at Galway talked to us on the possibility of Adaptive Optics coming down in cost sufficently to be within the reach of the amateur. This was a fascinating and entertaining talk by one of the world's experts in the field.

Here's Prof Dainty taking questions...



As a footnote, there was a Total Lunar Eclipse in the early hours of Thursday morning. Whilst I did see a bit of it through a thin part of the high-speed clouds but it was only a fleeting glimpse and photography was out of the question! So roll on 2010!