Galway Astronomy Club’s AstroFest 2019 is taking place in the Harbour Hotel, Galway, on Saturday with talks, trade displays, photographic displays, and a lunchtime workshop by one of Ireland’s leading astrophotographers, Tom O’Donoghue.
Registration opens at 9.15am on Saturday for the day-long festival, which is a must for anyone interested in astronomy and science. There will also be a special screening of Hidden Figures at the EYE Cinema tomorrow (Friday ) at 7.30pm. This film tells the true story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the US space programme.
The talks on this year’s programme include Stellar Coronal Mass Ejections and Implications for Life on Exoplanetary Systems by Dr Aaron Golden (School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics, NUIG ); The Star that Changed the Universe by Tony O’Hanlon (Shannonside Astronomy Club ); Comet Debris and Irish Trees: What’s the Connection? by Michael Baillie (professor emeritus of paleoecology at Queens University Belfast ); and Gravitational Waves: A New Window on the Universe by Dr Morgan Fraser (research fellow at the School of Physics, UCD ).
The Patrick Moore memorial lecture, entitled The Sun Earth Connection, will be given by Dr Sophie Murray, research fellow at TCD and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Tickets are €15 for members of Galway Astronomy Club, €25 for non-members, €15 for students and seniors, and free for children. The festival dinner is €30.
For full details visit www.galwayastronomyclub.ie and find Galway Astronomy Club on Facebook. For details of the Hidden Figures screening contact the EYE Cinema or see www.eyecinema.ie
