The Norwegian Astronomical Society, www.astronomy.no , celebrates its 70th aniversary at the same time as Deep Sky Exploration, www.dse.no , marks its 30th. This will be celebrated in Norway by a Jubeliee conference held on Aug 29.-31. at Gavelstad Hotel, Svarstad, just north of Larvik, with guest speaker Fred Espanak (Mr. Eclipse) from NASA, USA, coming to speak on tracking eclipses and the eclipse catalogues of NASA. http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse.html
During the weekend there will stargazing from one of Norways largest observatories (which is located in the middle of nowhere) and the rocket science group plan the launching of a hybrid rocket. It is a great opportunity to rub shoulders with the astronomers, and if anyone is wondering - Knut Jorgen Roed Odegaard, one of Norways leading astronomical authorities, proposed to his wife during the public event of Venus' transit and passage of the Sun on June 8. 2004. I don't know what it is like to be married to an astronomer, but his wife couldn't resist the force of Venus in the Heart of the Sun!
I anyone has the opportunity to join in, on a last minute impulse, just give me a buzz!

Meeting Fred Espanak and listening to his enthusiastic talk on the astronomy of Solar Eclipses was pure inspiration. Solar eclipses are divided into 4 categories: Partial, total, annular and hybrides, the latter category being rare eclipses that change and are both total and hydride at different points of the eclipse path. Espanak, who's approach is purely scientific, communicated with great compassion and appreciation of foreign culture what would drive him to travel half way round the world to observe a total eclipse that may last only 40 seconds, and that is providing that clouds didn't black him out. Being clouded out was very much the case when he spent 4 weeks on an ice-breaker in the Antarctica to mount his telescopic and photographic equipment amoung the penguins only before the heavens turn against him and blocked visability. Espanak displayed some terrific pictures of the Sun's outer corona and explained how these were made.
Later in the evening the participants toured to the observatory, lay well into the remoteness of the Nowegian woods. Here we observed the Ring Nebula M57 in the constellation of Lyra at a distance of 2300 light years from the earth. The nebula was discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779. (Two years prior to the discovery of Uranus!) The Ring Nebula has an apparant magnitude of +9, which in comparison makes it fainter than the planet Neptune at mag.+8 but brighter than the considerably fainter Pluto at mag.+14. As we know, neither of these objects are visable to the unaided eye. Those weakest stars that are visable to the naked eye are rated at about mag. +6, while Uranus has mag. +5,6 and is only just about visable if you are lucky and know what you are looking for!

The Ring Nebula M57 in the constellation of Lyra: