Category for past lectures/events with recordings and/or text version available.

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Unveiling the Dark Universe with the Dark Energy Survey

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The Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture 2022

7.00 pm Tuesday 15th November 2022 at the 10E 0.17 Lecture Theatre, University of Bath and online via Zoom

Dr Alexandra Amon
University of Cambridge

Dr Amon uses observational data for over 100 million galaxies and a technique called ‘gravitational lensing’ in order to test the Standard Cosmological Model. The intriguing results she and her collaborators find hint at cracks in the currently accepted model for our Universe, which is mostly dark, with over 95 percent of it in the form of dark energy and dark matter, whose natures are the biggest mysteries in modern physics.

In her Caroline Herschel Prize Lecture entitled “Unveiling the Dark Universe with the Dark Energy Survey”, Dr Amon will describe some of the mind-blowing historical moments leading to the paradigm-change, the challenges in the field, the Dark Energy Survey and its results, including the experimental process – from nights at the remote telescope to hurdles in the data analysis. The conclusions will guide the audience to appreciate current mysteries and future directions.

Dr Amon is an expert in cosmology and a Senior Kavli Fellow at the Institute for Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Before this, she was a Fellow at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. She obtained her Masters degree and PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2018 and has numerous awards, such as the Michael Penston Thesis Prize/Fermilab Tollestrup Award. Dr Amon is co-coordinator of the Weak Lensing group of the worldwide collaboration “The Dark Energy Survey”, including over 100 members.

the video of Alex Amon’s lecture is now available on Youtube, here.

Friday 4th November 2022 Views of the Universe with the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory’s Sharp Eyes

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Image (of the Chandra X-ray Observatory) credit: (c) CXC/SAO/NASA

Friday 4 November 2022 7.30 pm BRLSI in-person and Zoom lecture

Professor Belinda Wilkes
University of Bristol

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched on 23 July 1999 by the Space Shuttle Columbia. Now in its 23rd year of operations, Chandra continues to be an indispensable tool for expanding the frontiers of knowledge throughout astrophysics. Chandra’s uniquely high (subarcsec) spatial, and spectral resolution have facilitated the deepest and sharpest images of the X-ray sky to date, resulting in changing paradigms in multiple celestial source types. Combining the X-ray data with that from optical, infrared, and radio telescopes gives us an even deeper understanding of each source. I will review Chandra’s unique capabilities, and take us on a tour of some of the most spectacular discoveries across the whole range of celestial sources. These include the birth and death of stars, super-massive black holes, active galaxies, clusters of galaxies, dark matter, merging neutron stars, and more.


Professor Belinda Wilkes is a Royal Society Wolfson Visiting Fellow at the School of Physics, University of Bristol. She recently retired as a Senior Astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) (Cambridge, MA, USA), where she served as Director of the Chandra X-ray Center, which operates NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, from 2014-2020.
Wilkes received her BSc (Hons) in Astronomy and Physics from St. Andrews University, Scotland in 1978 and her PhD in Astronomy from Jesus College, University of Cambridge, England in 1982. She spent two years as a NATO postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, and moved to CfA’s High Energy Astrophysics Division in 1984. She is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, American Astronomical Society, American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Cambridge Philosophical Society, and a member of the International Astronomical Union, and the European Astronomical Society. She has received numerous awards, including the NASA Outstanding Public Leadership Medal, 5 NASA Group Achievement Awards, and a NASA MSFC Director’s Commendation, and many Smithsonian Institution Exceptional Accomplishment Awards. In 2018 she was elected an Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge University.
Wilkes’ research involves X-ray and multi-wavelength studies of active galaxies: super-massive black holes in galaxy nuclei. She is author and co-author of over 490 science publications, including 170 refereed papers, two books, several book chapters, and multiple articles and interviews in the public media.

the video recording of this lecture is now freely available on the Virtual BRLSI YouTube channel here.

Saturday 1 Oct 2022 09:30 – 17:45 BRLSI All-day conference – A Celebration of William Herschel’s Astronomy

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Image credit: (c)

This event is part of H200 – the Herschel Society’s celebration of William Herschel on the bicentenary of his death.

A joint conference put together by the Herschel Society in tandem with Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, and being held at Queen Square in Bath, is the centrepiece of the Herschel Society’s celebration of William Herschel’s achievements on the 200th anniversary of his death in 1822.

If you love astronomy, but Herschel’s home city of Bath feels light years away, you might be pleased to know that you can attend the conference both live at Queen Square and online. Wherever you are in the world you will be able to engage in the company of likeminded enthusiasts.

Why is it that we celebrate Herschel over 200 years after his death? William Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781 brought him widespread fame, but his importance to astronomy rests much more on his pioneering work on the deep sky beyond our solar system over the subsequent decades.

This fantastic day of talks will bring the chance to explore William’s telescope making; observing methods; ground- breaking deductions; unique collaboration with Caroline his sister, in cataloguing the deep sky; his speculative views on life on other worlds. The conference will show what this has led to today in the latest astronomical survey work by the Gaia space observatory. It will also illustrate his achievements in other more surprising ways.

The conference delivers the chance to engage with Herschel’s work at a far deeper level and each talk allows for questions with the visiting speaker. There will also be the chance to talk among yourselves and share thoughts with likeminded friends.


Was William Herschel the greatest astronomer the world has ever known? Charles Draper shares with us just some of the reasons we celebrate Herschel over two hundred years after his death. To know more about Herschel and the breadth of his achievements don’t forget to book your tickets for our conference on October 1st.

Watch Charles Draper now.

Schedule for the day.
9.30 – Welcome and Introduction (Charles Draper, Chairman, Herschel Society)
9.45 – The Context of William’s Life and Work (Professor Mike Edmunds, President of the Royal Astronomical Society)
10.00 – William’s Telescopes (Dr Jim Bennett, Keeper Emeritus of the Science Museum, London) William built the finest deep sky telescopes in the world in the late Eighteenth century, but just how he prepared and finished the reflecting surfaces of these astonishing instruments is less well understood.
10.45 – Coffee
11.00 – William Herschel’s Astronomy (Dr Wolfgang Steinicke, author of William Herschel – Discoverer of the Deep Sky). William and Caroline catalogued 2500 deep sky objects, and William deduced many important characteristics of them and our galaxy as a result. Their results and methods were key pioneering works of modern astronomy.
12.00 – William and Caroline in their own words (Dr Sian Prosser, Librarian and Archivist at the Royal Astronomical Society) William and Caroline have left us fascinating records of their work, including annotations on an earlier star atlas and revealingly different accounts of important events.
12.45 – Lunch Interval (self-organised). Demonstrations by Dr Bob Fosbury (ex European Space Agency astrophysicist and current UCL researcher on vision) on Infra-Red Radiation and Bath Spa University Students of their 3D virtual model of William’s finest telescope.
13.45 – William and Georgian views on extra-terrestrial life (Dr Josh Nall, Curator at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge) William strongly believed in the presence of life on heavenly bodies – even the sun. This was not unusual in his time.
14.30 – Giant Strides from Herschel to Gaia; Mapping the Sky from Space (Dr Michael Perryman, Ex Space Scientist with the European Space Agency, including key leadership roles on the Gaia Mission) Tracing the steps of how comprehensive surveys of the sky are revolutionising our understanding of the universe as they did in the Herschel’s’ time.
15.30 – Coffee
15.45 – Round Table Discussion
16.45 – Closing remarks by Dr Allan Chapman (President of the Herschel Society)
17.00 – Closing drinks for those at BRLSI
17.45 – End
JOIN US FOR ‘A CELEBRATION OF THE ASTRONOMY OF WILLIAM HERSCHEL’ , SATURDAY 1ST OCT 2022

Video recordings of the following lectures from the conference are now freely available on YouTube – use the links below.

Part 1
Introduction (Charles Draper)
The Context of William’s Life and Work (Professor Mike Edmunds)
William’s Telescopes (Dr Jim Bennett)

Part 2
William Herschel’s Astronomy (Dr Wolfgang Steinicke)
Lunchtime demonstrations (Dr Bob Fosbury and Bath Spa University students)

Part 3
William and Georgian views on extra-terrestrial life (Dr Josh Nall)
Round Table Discussion
Closing remarks (Dr Allan Chapman, Charles Draper)

Virtual Telescope

Bath Spa Students 3D Virtual Model of Herschel’s 20 ft telescope – you can see the virtual model in a website created by the students here:
https://herschel200.com/


Friday 30 Sep 2022 7.30 pm St Swithin’s Church – Concert: A Celebration of William Herschel’s Music

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The Bristol Ensemble and the Vauxhall Players.
Image credit: (c)

Performed by The Bristol Ensemble and the Vauxhall Players and introduced by Dr Matthew Spring

This programme intermixes music composed by William Herschel during his years in Bath (1766-82) and in the six years he spent in the North of England, with music by those who worked with him and whose music he knew: Charles Avison, Thomas Linley, Venanzio Rauzzini and Benjamin Milgrove. We include music intended for the home, for the church and chapels, for the Assembly rooms, and for the Pleasure Gardens. Instrumental items are intermixed with vocal pieces, both unaccompanied and accompanied, to produce an introduced varied programme that charts the musical life of William Herschel.

  • William Herschel: Symphony di Camera no.4 in D minor (1760), Allegro moderato; Adagio ma non troppo; Allegro moderato
  • William Herschel: Three movements from 24 Capriccios for solo violin (1763), nos. 1, 11, 17
  • William Herschel: Service Music – Te Deum in G major
  • William Herschel: Solo for harpsichord in G major, from Sei Sonate per il Cembalo (1769): allegro grazioso
  • Charles Avison: trio sonata no.2, op.1, in G minor: Andante, Adagio, Allegro
  • Thomas Linley: Song with English guitar, ‘No flower that blows’; William Herschel: Song with Eighteenth-Century Spanish guitar ‘Ah! non lasciami’; Thomas Linley: Madrigal, ‘Let me careless and unthoughtful lying’
  • Venanzio Rauzzini – Opera Aria ‘Infelice! In tant orror’ from Pyramus and Tisbe (1775)
  • William Herschel; Serious Glee in three parts with band ‘We sing of love’; Duetto –‘with thee my Strephon; Pleasure Garden Patriot Song – ‘Let humble faithless France’ (1778)
  • William Herschel: Unaccompanied catches ‘You’r tipsy Tom’; ‘Pray let us sing a merry catch’; ‘Today I am just 29’;’Echo catch’ (1778)
  • Benjamin Milgrove: ‘Funeral Hymn on the death of George Whitfield’; ‘The rose had been washed’ – pleasure garden song with band
  • William Herschel: Symphony no. 9 in F (1761): Allegro assai, Andante assai, Allegretto

If you would like to listen to this music, a virtually identical concert by the same performers and introduced by Dr Matthew Spring, was recorded in a studio setting and is available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxVgbVNaL8E.

Friday 2 Sep 2022 7.30 pm BRLSI lecture – Exploring Astronomy and Space Through Philately – A Brief Introduction

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Katrin Raynor-Evans FRAS

Image credit: (c) Katrin Raynor-Evans

The first astronomy themed stamp dates to 1887 when Brazil issued a perforated stamp, buff and blue in colour, depicting the Southern Cross, an asterism seen in the Southern Hemisphere. Even throughout the 1800s, stamps were being printed with astronomical watermarks, such as suns and stars and early stamps issued in Egypt were designed with a pyramid and star.
Over the decades, we have celebrated astronomy and space on stamps including comets, astronomers, man on the moon and events in the astronomical calendar such as solar eclipses. Exploring Astronomy and Space Through Philately will take you on an out of this world journey looking at and discussing a selection of astronomy and space themed stamps that have been issued all over the world, proving that we can enjoy the wonders of the Universe even on a cloudy night.

Katrin Raynor-Evans is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Geographical Society and also a member of the Cardiff Astronomical Society and Astro Space Stamp Society. She writes articles and interviews for popular astronomy magazines including the BBC Sky at Night, Popular Astronomy, Stanley Gibbons and has a regular monthly column for All About Stamps. She is co-authoring her first book and is the astronomer for the Country Focus show on BBC Radio Wales. Asteroid 446500 Katrinraynor is named after her.

This lecture will be delivered remotely from Wales, but may be attended either in the BRLSI or remotely on Zoom.

A recording of this lecture is freely available on YouTube here.

Friday 6 May 2022 7.30 pm BRLSI Zoom lecture projected at the BRLSI and delivered from Cambridge 21-cm Radio Cosmology with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA): What happened after the Big Bang?

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Dr Eloy de Lera Acedo
University of Cambridge.

Image credit: (c) SKA Organisation/Swinburne Astronomy Productions

In this talk Dr de Lera Acedo will discuss the science behind understanding how the first stars formed and ionised the intergalactic medium, ~ 300 Myears after the Big Bang, effectively transforming a mostly simple and empty Universe into the realm of complex celestial objects we now know it to be today. The SKA, with its unprecedented imaging capabilities, will in a few years be able to image this unexplored epoch of the infant Universe, and a series of precursor instruments are already paving the way. He will discuss these, their science cases and their latest results.

Dr de Lera Acedo is a STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow at the Cavendish Astrophysics laboratory of the University of Cambridge, from where he leads the Cavendish Radio Cosmology group and the REACH (Radio Experiment for the Analysis of Cosmic Hydrogen) project. Dr de Lera Acedo’s career started designing radio antennas and modelling and calibration techniques for the Square Kilometre Array telescope, and over the last decade has transitioned to cosmology research of the early epochs of the Universe using highly precise calibrated radiometers. The Cosmic Dawn (birth of the first stars) and the Epoch of Re-ionization (subsequent shaping of the InterGalactic Medium by those first stars) are the two unexplored epochs under study by Dr de Lera Acedo’s group at Cambridge.

Dr de Lera Acedo will give the lecture remotely from Cambridge via Zoom. It can be attended remotely on Zoom or in the room at the BRLSI where it will projected. 

This talk was being given remotely from Cambridge and the video recording of this lecture is now freely available on the Virtual BRLSI YouTube channel. Please go the following link to view it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNaZtjsMv6k&list=PLJW1gdt3yAhdurWMK_vHNdlR9w_kHEiwC

Friday 1 April 2022 7.30 pm BRLSI Zoom lecture projected at the BRLSI and delivered from Texas The Water Cycle of a Cold Early Mars and its Potential Role in the Persistence of a Northern Ocean

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Stephen Clifford
Senior Research Scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Image credit: (c) National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Investigations by robotic spacecraft have provided persuasive evidence that early Mars was water-rich, hosting numerous lakes and possibly a northern ocean that covered as much as a third of the planet. This talk will review the evidence for such an ocean as well as the process that may have affected its timing, duration, and ultimate loss.

Steve Clifford has cooperated with Mike Carr who gave the lecture on 5th November last year on Mars: Ancient rivers, lakes and oceans. But where is the water now? – so this lecture will follow on from Mike Carr’s.

Stephen Clifford is a Senior Research Scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he conducts research on the hydrologic and climatic behavior of water on Mars. His research has included studies of the stability and replenishment of Martian ground ice; glacial flow and polar evolution; the seismic and hydrologic effects of impact cratering; large-scale groundwater transport; and the and geophysical investigations of planetary environments with deep-sounding radars. Steve has been involved with radar investigations on a number of European Space Agency missions including the MARSIS orbital radar sounder on the Mars Express, the CONSERT radar on the Rosetta comet mission, and the WISDOM Ground penetrating radar on the ExoMars rover (which will be launched in September). He received his Master’s in Physics and PhD in Astronomy from the University of Massachusetts.

This talk was being given remotely from Texas and the video recording of this lecture is now freely available on the Virtual BRLSI YouTube channel. Please go the following link to view it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExiAHoLlQZc&t=16s

Saturday 5th March 2022 18:00 GMT – Free Zoom Webinar: New Views of William Herschel (1738 – 1822)

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In Memory of Michael Hoskin (1930-2021)

Professor Woodruff T Sullivan (University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.)
Sarah Waltz (University of the Pacific, Stockton, Cal.)
John Mulligan (Rice University, Houston, Tex.)
David Koerner (Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Ariz.)
Clifford Cunningham (University of Southern Queensland, Austin, Tex.)
Stephen Case (Olivet Nazarene University, Kankakee, Ill.)

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of William Herschel’s death, “New Views of William Herschel (1738-1822)” will be presented as a Zoom session (“Webinar”) on Saturday 5 March 2022 at 1300 ET (US & Canada). The session is dedicated to the memory of the preeminent Herschel scholar Michael Hoskin(1930-2021), and sponsored by the Historical Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. There are six talks over a period of three hours, including a 15-minute break.

“New Views” refers largely to Herschel’s non-astronomical life, in particular musical and other aspects of his life in Hanover, Yorkshire, and Bath before he became an astronomer following his discovery of Uranus in 1781 at age 42. Two of the presentations include many selections from his musical compositions, and a third looks at how Herschel’s fame and discoveries led to his inclusion in poetry. Two others look at his close research connections with his sister Caroline and son John.

All are invited to attend, participate via “Zoom Chat”, and ask questions of speakers. The full program (including abstracts) is available as a downloadable PDF here.


Start time is Saturday 5 March 2022 at 1300 ET (US & Canada) = 1800 GMT. If you are unable to attend the Webinar, note that the entire Session has been recorded and is available here.

Friday 4th March 2022 BRLSI in-person lecture also available online

The James Webb: The Next Generation of Hubble Telescope

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Professor Martin Ward
Emeritus Temple Chevallier Professor of Astronomy at Durham University.

Image credit: (c) National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Hubble Space Telescope has become an icon of Astronomy and it is now more than 30 years old. The new and much more powerful James Webb Space Telescope will soon extend our frontiers of observation. Professor Martin Ward has been involved in this exciting project for many years, and in this lecture he will give you a flavour of what is to come.

Lecturer background

Martin received his BSc. From Imperial College London. He then studied for his Masters and PhD degrees at Sussex University, combined with working at The Royal Greenwich Observatory, based at Herstmonceux Castle, in Sussex. He then accepted a Fellowship at Cambridge University. After this he moved to the USA, and worked at the University of Washington in Seattle, on preparations for the launch of Hubble Space Telescope, before returning to the UK to take up a lectureship at Oxford University. His first appointment as a professor was at Leicester University, where he was involved in the National Space Centre project based in Leicester. In 2004 he move to Durham to become the first holder of the title Temple Chevallier Professor of Astronomy. At Durham University he was Head of the Physics Department and the Science Director of the Institute of Advanced Study.

He has been an advisor to NASA and the European Space Agency in various roles, and has been associated with the James Webb Space Telescope project for more than 20 years. He has published nearly 400 papers in scientific journals. He has long standing interests in public outreach, and has appeared on the Sky at Night, with Patrick Moore, In Our Time, with Melvyn Bragg, and Start the Week, with Andrew Marr.

Image

NASA engineer Ernie Wright looks on as the first six flight ready James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror segments are prepped to begin final cryogenic testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

This represents the first six of 18 segments that will form NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror for space observations. Engineers began final round-the-clock cryogenic testing to confirm that the mirrors will respond as expected to the extreme temperatures of space prior to integration into the telescope’s permanent housing structure.

The video recording of this lecture is now freely available on the Virtual BRLSI Youtube Channel: go to the following link to view it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5npYJXGFpOI

Friday 4th February 2022 BRLSI Zoom lecture projected at the BRLSI and delivered from California

A Tour of the Dynamic Universe

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Dr Jeffrey Scargle
NASA Ames Research Center, retired.

Image credit: (c) National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Casual observation of the night sky leads one to view the Universe as well-ordered and stable, changing only in minor ways and regularly, smoothly and predictably at that. Even intensive study with telescopes — starting with Galileo, and including William Herschel, Edwin Hubble and many others — only reinforced this vision of a Clockwork Universe. Space-based missions (including the Herschel and Hubble Observatories, named after the mentioned pioneers) opening up new wavelengths, as well as advances in technology enabling better ways of discovery, have led to a quite opposite view: the Dynamic Universe. This talk is essentially a guided tour of some remarkable events in this ever-changing, highly active universe. We start nearby with the Earth and our Sun, transit the Solar System, pass by exploding stars, active galaxies, gamma-ray bursts, ending with perhaps the most dramatic events of all: merging black holes, accessible through a completely new mode of observation in the form of gravitational radiation, “ripples in space-time.”

Jeff Scargle graduated from Pomona College and gained a PhD from the California Institute of Technology. Subsequently he was at the
University of California at Santa Cruz, Lick Observatory and then became a research astrophysicist in the Astrobiology and Space Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center.

This talk is being given remotely from California and can be attended either remotely on Zoom or at the BRLSI where it will projected. 

The video recording of this lecture is now freely available on the Virtual BRLSI YouTube channel. Please go the following link to view it.

https://youtu.be/_9eJUX48Jlg.