Society monthly meeting recorded on 20220119 virtually during COVID-19 restrictions that prevented meeting at The Briars Mount Martha Observatory in person.
Meeting introduction and rundown of past month and upcoming events was given by the President, Dr. Peter Skilton.
The main talk was a public lecture hosted by the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada, by Dr. Amber Straughn, Astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, on the topic of “A New Era in Astronomy: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope”.
This was preceded by a BBC News item from 20211206, prior to the launch of the JWST, about Dr. Amber Straughn, titled “How I Became a Space Telescope Scientist”.
Vice President, Mark Stephens, then presented “Sky for the Month”.
Other educational videos were shown by Peter Skilton as follows:
“The Insane Engineering of the James Webb Space Telescope”, presented by Brian McManus of the Real Engineering YouTube channel.
“Why Do Volcanic Eruptions Form Mushroom Clouds?” by Prof. James Jackson, Cambridge University.
A musical closure followed, showing a video of the Phases, Libration and Position Angle of the Moon for 2022, as seen from the southern hemisphere, courtesy of NASA Scientific Visualisation Studio. Audio is of Blossom Hills by Achille Richard.