The Group met at 10:15 on 12^th May with the theme ‘Wildlife in Nature’.

Teresa Twitchell sent her apologies.

Member’s responses were varied with photographs of birds, animals and insects – most were of very high quality. Overall best picture was Anjie Sargeants’s ‘Moorhen Chick’ that emphasised its huge feet.

July’s theme is ‘Ruins or Decay’.

The meeting was foreshortened to allow a presentation on Astrophotography by Trevor Lloyd. (arranged by Rosemary Crumplin) Trevor started by describing his telescope which was on display. The maintelescope was a Newton Reflector that used a concave mirror to collect the light that reflected on a focusing mirror to an eyepiece/camera. Using a motor-driven equatorial mount synchronised to the Earth’s rotation and a dedicated computer to drive the telescope to objects of interest. The telescope assembly was calibrated by focusing on the Pole star to establish the GPS position – the computer could then be programmed to move the assembly to any one of >2000 objects of interest. During a lively Q & A session, Trevor revealed that his average exposure time for the attached digital camera was between 2 and 3 minutes with several exposures being taken that were the focus-stacked and blended to produce the final photograph. He overcame the (high) Andover light pollution by observing at 1 a.m. onwards until about 4 a.m. when the street lights were switched off!

He finished with a selection of his photographs which ranged from global clusters through to planets including galaxies, nebulae, comets and the Milky Way. All were of excellent quality and evoked many comments from the members present.