Stellar line-up for joint SHA–BAA Spring Conference 28 March
National Maritime Museum
The 2015 Spring Conference of the Society for the History of Astronomy will take the form of a joint event with the History Section of the British Astronomical Association.
It will be on Saturday 28 March 2015 at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and promises to be a memorable event.
Giving the Alan Cox/David Dewhirst Memorial Lecture will be William Sheehan, renowned US author of many books on the history of astronomy—including the recently published Galactic Encounters—who will speak on the history of Mars exploration. Sheehan has also edited and brought to press Patrick Moore’s translation of Camille Flammarion’s 1892 classic, The Planet Mars and is currently working on an update of his own authoritative 1996 work on Mars.
Stuart Clark, widely read astronomy journalist and author of the highly successful Sky’s Dark Labyrinth Trilogy, will be talking about the subject of his acclaimed biography The Sun Kings— Richard Carrington and the 1859 Solar Flare.
The US astrophysicist and historian of astronomy, Prof. Jay Pasachoff, fresh back from observing the March 2015 solar eclipse, will take us back to sixteenth century astronomy as he speaks about the seminal discoveries of Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius, in relation to the Moon and Jupiter’s satellites. Jay is the Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College, Massachusetts, and is responsible for a number of general astronomy textbooks, which have become popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
Anthony Kinder, former Director of the BAA Historical Section, will outline the major study that he has been undertaking into the historical membership of the BAA and the SHA.
Bob Marriott, Director of the BAA Instrument & Imaging Section, will tell the fascinating story of the father-and-son astronomers, William Dawes and the Rev. William Rutter Dawes.
There will also be a presentation on behalf of Roger Jones, Co-ordinator of the SHA’s Survey of Astronomical History, which will describe the unique record of British and Irish astronomy across the centuries that is contained in the rapidly expanding SHA on-line survey. Roger is, sadly, now expected to be unable to attend for health reasons.
For full details please see our Meetings page.