SOCIETY IN FOCUS

Cornwall Astronomy Society normally meets twice monthly. One of our sites, Degibna Chapel near Helston, is a remote dark-sky location that lends itself to practical observing, with a wonderful blackness resplendent with stars on a clear winter’s evening.

With our meetings abandoned due to the COVID-19 lockdown, one of our members suggested trying out a remote meeting on Zoom and a short time later we held our first video-call meeting on 26 March. We started 30 minutes early to give members a chance to iron out any IT gremlins and get their Zoom sessions started.

The whole thing worked well and the experience got as close as we could to our normal face-to-face meetings. In fact, that meeting, and two subsequent ones, all went on longer than normal. During the first meeting we held a group discussion of topical events like comet C/2019 Y4 Atlas and some Messier objects on display.

I and fellow member Fred Deakin were able to slew our scopes to objects under discussion and share the images in real time on Zoom. This generated all manner of discussion about the object being observed, including practical issues around setting up a scope, accurate pointing and how to capture an image. Other video meetings have included a debate on whether we would be prepared to board the first spaceship to Mars, and reviews of planetarium software like Stellarium.

Zoom meetings have enabled us to continue our friendly club meetings, and in some ways have brought members closer together and engendered a healthy participative atmosphere.

Kevin Reid, member,

Cornwall Astronomy Society

www.cornwallas.org.uk