Four planets and a lot of stars - to say nothing of cake

Just back from an excellent weekend away in Ninebanks Youth Hostel helping to deliver an astronomy weekend. Basically Dr Fred delivers the technical stuff - understandable lectures and stunning slides on whatever topic astronomical agreed - this time lots of interesting information about planets and gravitational waves.... and I do the catering for the friends and visitors we have attending the weekend event. We hire the youth hostel - which I have to say one of the best located, friendliest and nicest hostels I've ever stayed in - so we have exclusive use and on this instance we had 14 interested person come along and enjoy an informative and fun long weekend. Although the weather was kind to us the skies did not clear for either Friday or Saturday evening so it was a good job most people stayed for the Sunday night when after a glorious sunny day everyone was able to stay out observing Jupiter and some of its moons, Mars rising followed swiftly by Saturn and its rings. Fired up by a Sunday dinner and lots of cake people were able to stay put to the early hours of the morning and make up for the lost previous evenings.

The added bonus for this weekend was the opportunity to observe the transit of Mercury on the Monday... unfortunately for me I had to whizz off back into the real world and go to college where I continue to explore options on circles spots and all things moths...

detail of detail moth wing.. wool embroidery on calico

The weekend wasn't all hard work astronomy and cooking...there was plenty of opportunity to explore the local area. Dr Fred and I had a wander down to Lambley Viaduct - a very pleasant walk down the disused railway line across the top of the viaduct and then down the steps into the valley to view the extremely magnificent piece of architecture from below... Dr Fred has a mind to climb it at some point but I just enjoyed the river and the woods surrounding it.

If you want more detail about joining our astronomy weekends contact Dr Fred on yuricosmos@gmail.com all welcome and all levels of knowledge and curiosity catered for (plus wholesome food and yummy cakes)

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