Wales & West Spacefest Saturday 7th March

Bristol Astronomical Society, Bath Astronomers, and Cardiff Astronomers organised an all-day event with  Aerospace Bristol (Concorde Museum) which was a fascinating day out.

As well as a number of astronomical stands and exhibits in the main hall (underneath Concorde!) there was a number of fascinating talks given by professional astronomers.

Talks

In the morning, we had talks about the region and various space activities. We started with a talk from Jonathan Hall of the Herschel Museum about the discovery of Uranus from Herschel’s back garden. This was followed by talks from Dr. Nigel Wright about Filton’s involvement with the solar arrays on the Hubble space telescope; and Professor David Parker’s reminisces on Filton to ESA and the planets. The final session in the morning was by Dr Rosie Cane of Space Wales and Matthew Wills of Space West who detailed what activities relating to space were taking place in the region NOW.

The lunchtime slot in the lecture theatre was taken by Dr Jane Clark, aimed at a general introduction to space for the general public. In the afternoon we had the “symposium” on Exoplanets: Dr Ingrid Pelisoli and Dr Thomas Wilson from Warwick University talked on exoplanets and binary stars. This was followed by a talk from Dr Gordon Yip of King’s College, London on how can lessons learnt from AI help us with building a space mission? After a short break, Ailsa Campbell and Daniel Valentine PhD research students from Hannah Wakeford’s research group at Bristol University talked about the atmospheres of Exoplanets using results from the Hubble and James Webb telescopes.

Finally, Giovanna Tinetti of King’s College London rounded off the day with a talk on Space missions, particularly the Ariel Space telescope.

Exhibits

As well as the talks we had Space Detectives with 3D virtual reality headsets and Bath Astronomers provided a planetarium. And, of course, there were the exhibitor stands next to the Concorde, a superb backdrop. There were ‘spotlight talks’ throughout the day on ‘Filton in Space’ and ‘Giotto to Halley’s Comet’, by Aerospace Bristol visitor-services volunteers in front of the spacecraft exhibits in the museum’s galleries. Highlights of the stands included The British Interplanetary Society’s docking simulator and the BAA’s rotating penguin, probably the first time Concorde and a rotating penguin have been in such close proximity!

And honourable mention goes to Terry Ransome, a volunteer with Aerospace Bristol, had set up his full-sized replica of the Beagle 2 Mars lander of 2003. Terry was the last human being to see and touch Beagle 2!

It was a great day, enjoyed by all. The Museum welcomed 739 visitors that day – very well received by museum management!

Thanks

Aerospace Bristol for their hospitality and help, providing all the facilities free of charge, covering the costs of the speakers, the Space Detectives and the planetarium. We would also like to thank them for the volunteers’ food and drink vouchers.

Speakers: We would like to thank our 12 speakers for 10 very interesting and diverse presentations, enjoyed by all.

Exhibitors: Thanks for coming and providing both interesting and interactive items to look at and “play” with.

Volunteers and organisers: Thanks to the people who helped out on the day, the volunteers manning the stands and those helping with the various activities. We mustn’t forget the team organising the event especially those from Bristol Astronomical Society with help from Bath Astronomers, Cardiff Astronomical Society and Terry Ransome and the volunteers from Aerospace Bristol.

Comments

Helen Usher – BAA

Just to say thanks for inviting us to Saturday – we had a great day! It was lovely to be able to talk to so many people of different ages. It was also a great networking opportunity with the other organisations who have a similar passion for engaging and inspiring people with astronomy. One particularly potentially exciting opportunity is to link our Comet Chasers project with the Herschel Museum’s education activities. They are keen to do more Comet activities to link with Caroline Herschel, as her brother gets more attention given his planet discovery.

Richard Miles – BAA

Speaking on behalf of the BAA, I shall recommend the event to the Council and events organisers if it is staged again in future. The exoplanet talks were splendid and you did very well to attract the speakers particularly Giovanna Tinetti, who as we saw is a very busy lady.

Robin Brand – BIS

Many thanks for accommodating the BIS stand, and your help beforehand. I thought the Spacefest event went very well, although not as many visitors were browsing the stands as perhaps, we hoped; however, the half-dozen BIS volunteers provided very useful cover and enjoyed meeting each other, and our ISS docking simulator was a very popular ‘hands-on’ attraction, busy all day with young and old! I think having the BIS there was appreciated, and I certainly made some useful contacts and acquired a feel of the interest in the BIS in the area – which has allowed me to explore re-starting a BIS West/Bristol branch, so thank you for that.

Joe Middleton – Herschel Museum

Many thanks – it was a very enjoyable day and I’m glad so many people attended. It was great to talk to the public and members of the other societies contributing to the event. Thank you for organising and letting us be involved. Many thanks for organising the event, we all felt it was a great success. Just a few feedback points;
-the location was great, including the layout of the stands.
-Being able to drop off/pick up and park by the site was very helpful.
-The vouchers for food and drink for the team were appreciated.
Thanks for all your time and effort in making Spacefest a success.

Simon Holbeche – Bath Astronomers

We had a Coordination Team meeting at Bath Astronomers last night and the feedback about the Wales & West Spacefest was all good. BA volunteers thought it was a great event and very busy. Good networking opportunity.

Terry Ransome

‘Twas fantastic’!
See you at the next Spacefest ???????

Websites

Aerospace Bristol: https://www.aerospacebristol.org
Bristol Astronomical Society: https://bristolastrosoc.org.uk
Bath Astronomers: https://bathastronomers.org.uk
Cardiff Astronomical Society: https://www.cardiff-astronomical-society.co.uk
Herschel Museum: https://www.herschelmuseum.org.uk
British Interplanetary Society: https://www.bis-space.com
British Astronomical Association: https://www.britastro.org
Space West: https://www.nccuk.com
Space Wales: https://spacewales.co.uk

Speakers

Professor David Parker: https://www.southampton.ac.uk
Dr Ingrid Pelisoli and Dr Thomas Wilson https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/
Dr Gordon Yip: https://www.kcl.ac.uk
Ailsa Campbell and Daniel Valentine are members of Dr Hannah Wakeford’s research group
at Bristol University https://bristol.ac.uk/
Dr Giovanna Tinetti: https://giotin.org