~ Star Stuff event at Byron Bay 24th & 25th June 2017 ~

~ Beautiful posters for Star Stuff, I'm pointing to my favourite planet Saturn and Julie's with Dylan's latest Eta Carina image ~

All I can say is Wow…it really did take some time to come down from the natural high of having so many incredible speakers all together in the one place giving all the 400 people who attended such outstanding talks about our Universe.
 
I just don’t know how our SAS member Dylan O’Donnell managed to put this amazing event all together, it started out as an idea of bringing some real science to his area of Bryon Bay and ‘O Boy’…look at what it grew into and with the support from our club we were able to put together a wonderful event for everyone that attended.
Absolutely awesome!!!
 
SAS has put together a special edition of our e-newsletter called ‘Event Horizon’ please go to the website and download a copy at: http://sas.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/SAS-EH-July-2017-small.pdf
 
Below are some images of us in our bright yellow Star Staff t-shirts, we all had an fantastic time,
​but very busy…

So who were all these amazing speakers, first of all there was Dr Duane Hamacher who gave a very interesting and fascinating talk on ‘Aboriginal Astronomy’, http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com.au
  
Then Mark Gee who’s a renowned New Zealand astro-photographer, who showed and explained how he takes his stunning wide field images of the night sky. http://theartofnight.com

~ Mark Gee NZ Astrophotographer ~

Dr David Malin then gave us a bit of history into how humans have recorded what they see and how important it is for astro-photographers to stand out from the crowd with their astro-images. https://www.davidmalin.com
​

~ Star-trail image taken by Dr David Malin ~

~ Dr David Malin ~

Dr Fred Watson from Siding Springs Observatory gave a talk on light pollution; he’s also such a lovely man who took time out to be in a photo with us girls, we were all thrilled :-) http://www.fredwatson.com.au
​

~ Dr Fred Watson with us girls from SAS ~

~ Dr Fred Watson ~

~ Q&A time with Dr Fred Watson ~

Then there was Dr Katie Mack, who had people a little bit scared of the future with her predictions,
​but assured us that the universe would be all Ok :-)
 http://www.astrokatie.com

And of course Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, well what can I say about Dr Karl, he’s just amazing with all his space facts that makes science just fun for everyone to enjoy. http://drkarl.com

There was also Dr Alan Duffy, who’s such a friendly down to earth astrophysicist with such a great sense of humour who just loved looking through the telescopes and thanked all us through a Instagram video at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVvLoxABwph/?hl=en
Dr Alan Duffy's website is at: http://www.alanrduffy.com

~ Dr Alan Duffy ~

And then there was Jamie Anderson from Gilmour Space Technologies from the Gold Coast, explaining the challenge of building rockets here in Australia. https://www.spaceflightacademy.com.au
 
Machaela Jeffrey gave us an overview of the current operations of ESA’s operation here in Australia with the same set of problems that Jamie has with getting support for the space industry here in Australia…hopefully it will change in the near future.
 
But that was not all; our own Dylan O’Donnell gave a wonderful presentation on how he takes his beautiful images and shared a lot of his knowledge with everyone with a few excellent tips and secrets to help people take better images of the night sky, great presentation Dylan! http://deography.com/byron-bay-observatory/

One of the highlights goes to a young lady called Jade Rushwood from Bryon Bay High School, who gave an excellent presentation on ‘Jupiter and its moons orbits’ which was very inspirational, because she spent so much time observing and recording the events.

​Jade was rewarded with a resounding applause and given a brand new Australian Geographic telescope to help with her new discoveries in the night sky.

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One of the local schools the Bryon Community Primary School set up an astronomy display that was lovely.
 Bryon Community Primary School: http://www.bcps.org.au

Some of the wonderful sponsors at Star Stuff, Celestron, BIntel and Australian Geographic
Australian Geographic http://www.australiangeographic.com.au
Celestron Telescopes: https://www.celestron.com
BIntel: https://www.bintel.com.au

Please find the link to my other blog that shows the solar prominence, which was on display during the Star Stuff at: 
http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/-solar-prominence-on-display-for-star-stuff-astronomy-event

​Is there going to be a Star Stuff2…you bet, Dylan has already locked in the date of Saturday the 30th June and Sunday the 1st July 2018. Please go to the Star Stuff website and sign up for Star Stuff2 updates at https://starstuff.com.au and we’ll see you all there again next year for another amazing ‘Out of this World’ event, Noeleen ;-)

Noeleen Lowndes (President)
Southern Astronomical Society (Gold Coast) QLD Australia
http://sas.org.au