ASTRONOMY PRESENTATION

to raise funds for

Multiple Sclerosis
The Birley Centre, Eastbourne

Tuesday 23rd October 2012

Don't be fooled by the almost empty front row!  The screen was so large the audience elected to sit a little further back as well as fill the upper balcony!  What a night it was!  A large enthusiastic crowd joined me to share a journey into our Star and other stars 'out there', from birth to life and subsequent demise.  After an hour we reached the interval, whereby twenty minutes later, we journeyed onward for another hour, taking in dimension and perspective on the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn before exiting the Solar System and heading into the 'great beyond' ... and beyond ... and beyond.  The Milky Way Galaxy, with the lightyear intimately explained, was soon forsaken for the Local Group, clusters and superclusters of galaxies and the entire cosmic web thus far known.  I had feared my audience might run for the proverbial trees at half-time!  Not a bit of it!  With the aid of some gorgeous images from NASA/ESA's Hubble Space Telescope and the magical photography of ace astro-imager Nik Szymanek, we soaked up a wondrous voyage - and raised SIGNIFICANT funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society Eastbourne and South Wealden Branch - a cause very dear to my heart.

A big thank you to Toni and Ray Morgan - it was their idea and it went down a storm!  A big thank you to Peter Austin, Chairman of the Society, who worked equally hard behind the scenes to pull it off on the night.  Also rallying the troops was Sally Goldrick - bless you for all that you did when it could not have been an easy task.  Thank you to Nik - whose images, offered free of charge, received the greatest gasps of delight.  Thank you to Hal, my technician, who pulled out all the cosmological stops and ensured we journeyed without a hitch.  Thanks to Simon and Elena for capturing a couple of moments of that journey on their iPhone and for travelling a great terrestrial distance to be with me!  And an enormous thank you to everyone else for making the effort, for staying the course and for really making a difference.  It was a night to remember.  Thank you all.