The meeting held on 7th April 2005 had as its main event, a talk called 'The Milky Way and Other Galaxies'. It was given by David Pugh who is one of our long term members and the club's secretary. In an exceptionally well prepared computer slide presentation, we learned of some of the most recent discoveries about out own galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy, long thought to be an average 'normal' spiral, has now been classified as 'SBc'. That is to say a Barred Spiral (the 'SB' designation) with fairly open arms (the 'c' designation).
We were taken on a pictorial tour of our galaxy which included images of globular clusters and well known nebulae. The presentation gave David a chance to show some of his favourite images particularly, an HST image of the so called 'Pillar's of Creation' which is part of the Eagle Nebula. He also included some of the excellent images taken by Rick Pecce (one of our own members).
In the final part of the talk, we were shown some of the latest x-ray images taken of the centre of our galaxy by the 'CHANDRA' telescope. These indicated the intense x-ray activity at what is thought to be the location of the Galactic Black Hole. This presentation is intended as Part I of two. The second will be given next year.
The next meeting to be held as usual at the 'Friends Meeting House' in Granville Road, Clacton on 1st September is very special. We are extremely fortunate to have Nik Szymanek who will present a talk entitled 'Astro-imaging from Mauna Kea Hawaii'