Astronomy in the City—October 2016

Astronomy in the City is a series of (free) public events, each packed with astrophysics; stargazing, and tea and biscuits. Evenings begin with talks covering astronomical highlights and recent research, and a question-and-answer session (for everything from beginner's questions about the night sky to the latest work done here in Birmingham). Afterwards, if the weather cooperates, we have observing with telescopes on campus with members of the University's AstroSoc and the Birmingham Astronomy Society. A lucky few will be taken out to the University’s Observatory and our powerful telescope.*

Each Astronomy in the City event features a talk on a different astrophysical topic connected to the research done at the University of Birmingham. This month, Hannah Middleton will talk about pulsars.

The first talk begins at 6:00 pm, in the Large Lecture Theatre of the Poynting Physics Building (R13 on the campus map) on the University's Edgbaston campus. For more details, including a preliminary program, please see the event website.

Astronomy in the City is aimed at secondary school age and above. Children must be in Year 7 or higher to attend the Observatory tours. All under-18s must be accompanied by a parent/guardian/teacher.

* You are not guaranteed a visit to the observatory. Due to limited space at the observatory we can only accommodate a total of 32 visitors to the observatory on the night. We will be running a lottery system to allocate the spaces on these tours. Anyone arriving before the talks begin is welcome to enter the lottery, however, we ask that if you have already attended an observatory tour you consider not entering your name to allow those who have not yet seen it a greater chance. Tours take ~1.5 hr and leave approximately every 30 minutes from ~7:15 pm. Entry to the lottery closes at 5:55pm, so please allow time to enter yourself upon arrival.

This is the first Astronomy in the City of the 2016/2017 season, future events are planned for 23 November 2016, 25 January 2017 and 8 March 2017.