| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Facilitator: | |
| Facilitator: | |
| Group email: | Astronuts group |
| When: | On Monday mornings 10:00 am-12:00 pm Occasionally we will have an evening field trip to view the sky at night |
| Venue: | Methodist Church Cat Lane |
| Cost: | £3 |
ASTRONUTS
Go on a once in a lifetime experience
A group of seven Astronuts set out on the 12th August 2026 for a once in a lifetime experience.
Frank Hill, Dawn Passant, Marion Ridsdill, Gill Fitzpatrick, John Rous, Pat Lucas, and Mary Potter.
We all met at Pats house around 4.30pm. Drivers Marion and Gill used a post code in their satnavs/Iphone to meet at Edgehill. Edgehill is a Dark Sky Area and with lots of open space to observe the Solar Eclipse which was due around 6:12 pm.
We met up about 5:40 pm and looked for somewhere to park and survey the area for later on and the Perseid Meteor Shower. We noted one place and Marion pinged it on her phone so that we could find it again.
Dawn handed out glasses so we could observe the eclipse safely and Frank set up his telescope, with a solar filter.
Our group with solar glasses on
We watched the whole Eclipse in a cloudless sky for nearly 2 hours.
Frank setting up his telescope. Then food time before we sat out in the dark and watched the Meteor Shower presuming Clear skies.
Much needed refreshments
Approximately 9.45pm – 10.00 we arrived at the spot in Edgehill Marion had pinged and decided we had a clear view of Perseus the constellation which the Meteors radiate from. We had enough light to set up our chairs and cameras and some of us remembered the red light rule.
As it got darker you could just make out the Milky way.
But most of all the Meteor Shower did not disappoint. We saw around 35-50 we think. They were very bright and fast. The odd faint one but overall, a spectacular display.
So the Astronuts achieved
- Solar eclipse 2026
- Dark Sky and plenty of stars
- Perseid Meteor Shower
- Faint Milky Way visible
- And Best of all NO MOON to spoil it.
Congratulations to this years quiz winners, Sue and Andy, at our Christmas meeting. Big thank you to Dawn who set the quiz
The Astronuts Go Meteor Watching
On the 12th August 2025 the Castle Bromwich U3A Group the Astronuts assembled at a member’s house for an evening’s ‘Meteor Watching’. The meteors, in particular were from the Perseid Meteor Showe. We were due to meet up on site on the 11th, but Mother Nature threw a nice cloud bank over us so we decamped to the following evening.
These showers are named after the constellation that is in the direction of the shower. They do not come from that constellation. The technique that is commonly set up for a meteor watch is that chairs are set out in a semi-circular format, the apex of the semi-circle is toward the Radiant.
This chair layout allows observers to look at different sections of the sky to catch meteors coming away from the point in the sky where they appear to come from. This is called the ‘Radiant Point’.
Over the evening the group observed fourteen meteors, the final one just as we were packing up the session (around midnight). Most were fast and short with very bright trails, some were several times brighter than the prominent star Vega, overhead in the constellation Lyra. Vega is a 0.03 magnitude star, very bright.
The number of Perseid meteors observed over the years appears to have reduced, particularly when observed from urban locations, maybe the results of increased light pollution making the fainter meteors no longer observable?
An enjoyable night in good company.
Dawn Passant
u3a Matters
We were pleased to find out we had made it into the u3a national magazine. Find us on page 78 of issue 69 Winter 2025
We are a fairly new group that finds looking up a great thing to do. Dawn is also one of our newer members of CBu3a with a long-time interest in what goes on in the sky above and in the universe beyond.
