|
Cheese and Wine Evening The cheese and wine evening with an auction proved to be very popular and has now become a regular feature in our diary. Everyone brought something along to be auctioned and we had a large selection of goods. The bidding was brisk and we were very pleased to find we had made £120 for our charity. Journey to the Stars Mr Gorman came to talk about astronomy and brought with him some lovely slides of many of the planets in our solar system. The night sky is constantly changing and he brought with him a planisphere for the northern hemisphere which when set to the date and time will show exactly which stars can be seen in the sky at that particular time of night. He showed us slides of Jupiter, Saturn with its rings and many others, also the eclipse of the sun in 1999 and more recently the eclipse of the moon when it turned a copper colour. The moon is very important for it is the moon's 'pull' which keeps the earth in an orbit that is a constant distance from the sun, keeping a moderate temperature on earth and making it possible to support life. We saw only the stars in our galaxy and there are thousands of galaxies in the universe and I think it made us all realise we are only a very tiny part of the universe. Mr Gorman gives talks to groups at Clanfield Observatory and they can observe the night sky through the telescopes there. The observatory has two open weekends during the year, one in the spring and one in the autumn and anyone is welcome to go to learn more about the stars. Margaret Deal |
|
page last updated 1 APRIL 2001 |
