We attended a Public Evening at the Cambridge University’s Institute of Astronomy on Wednesday 22nd January. We were treated to a fascinating presentation by Dr Mickael Rigault who specialises in observational cosmology. He talked about many aspects of his work and in particular about his research into the properties of Dark Energy using Type 1a supernova and the expansion of the universe. In my limited layman understanding, supernova are large exploding stars giving off massive amounts of energy. When a large star explodes it enables astronomers to measure its apparent magnitude and calculate the distance to it and the galaxy it is in.

Dr Matt Bothwell, public astronomer at the Institute, greeted us when we arrived and, as we were new to the public evenings, very kindly agreed to show us the historical Northumberland telescope in the break between the talks. He explained a little about the history of this telescope and how it worked.

Unfortunately the misty cloudy weather meant that we were not able to see any stars or planets on that particular night so no astronomical observation was taking place. Instead, we had a second talk from Jonathan Clough, an astronomy enthusiast, who enlightened us about meteoroids, meteors and meteorites. Jonathan gave us some good tips on how to observe shooting stars (meteors) and we were able to handle some meteorites which were surprisingly heavy.


The evening inspired us all to make an effort to attend more of these public evenings in the future with the many different speakers who present talks on a wide range of astronomical topics. We also hope to experience some guided stargazing and the use of the telescopes when the weather permits.