BAA Meeting

Saturday 25th Jan 202014:00

PLEASE NOTE THIS MEETING WILL BE IN OUR NEW MEETINGS VENUE IN THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS, 37 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9BU

This meeting will be livestreamed at the following URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzhYgY0guw0&feature=youtu.be

Doors will open at 14:00 for registration, Meeting will start at 14:30 and will be finished by 18:00.

Refreshments will be served approx 15:45

Programme: 

14:30    BAA President – Welcome and OM, notices etc

14:45   Fred Nye – ‘Latitude movements of solar prominences 2010 – 2017’

15:35   Tea

16:10    Dr Julian Onions – ‘A universe from scratch’

17:00   Sky Notes:  Mary McIntyre.

17:45    Close

Organiser:  Mrs Hazel Collett 

Bio – Fred Nye is a retired Consultant Physician. As a member of the BAA and the Liverpool Astronomical Society, he has been a regular solar observer for 12 years. His other interests include the history of astronomy, and amateur telescope making. 

Synopsis – Prominence latitudes were used to track the position of solar magnetic field boundaries over nine years. Visual methods were used. Equatorial field boundary positions were closely linked with active regions until solar maximum in 2014. Polar zone boundary migration towards the poles coincided with N/S magnetic field reversals, with polar ‘crowns’ forming in 2013/14. Day-to-day prominence positions marked the orientation and meridian bearing angles of their parent filaments: the derived net mean magnetic field direction was precisely aligned with the sun’s N-S meridian. An excess of westward- diverging boundaries peaked at solar maximum, suggesting an interaction between the sun’s poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields.

Bio – Julian Onions has always had an interest in astronomy, and after many years as an amateur went for a Phd in astrophysics at the University of Nottingham. There he studies computer models of galaxy formation using some of the biggest computers in the world, building model universes using mostly dark matter. He also helps out with undergraduate teaching and various outreach activities.
Synopsis –  Astronomy is mostly a visual and non-experimental science. We can only look at what is out there but can’t brings stars and galaxies into the lab. However we can build them inside computers and attempt to simulate them. In this talk, we will see how simulations can show us how the universe evolves and what we can do with them,  and what areas we are still struggling to make models of.

Venue

Institute of physics, Caledonian Road, London. N1 9BU


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