The Society Annual General Meeting was held at BEECHE, High Elms. After the normal business including officers’ reports and the election of the committee for 2010, our President Gilbert Satterthwaite gave us a third installment of his memories, entitled How Astronomy has changed over the years.
Carole Pope writes: Gilbert started his talk by praising every-one who has done anything to help over the years including Ken Budd who had designed the society logo which depicts Orion, Aquila and Sagitta. He said how amazed he was at the images being presented every month done by our own members in their back gardens.
He presented images and drawings done in the early days demonstrating quite clearly how modern equipment has improved imaging.
He showed images done on huge telescopes in the great observatories, such as the 35” Yapp telescope (before it moved to Herstmonceux), Sunspots done in 1947, 1966 Solar eclipse taken from an aircraft, 1970 amateur solar eclipse, sketches by Patrick Moore of Mercury, Venus and Mars, photos from 1959, 1966 1968, Saturn in UV, and comets from 1957. the Jewel Box (74” refractor), M45, M57, M42, NA nebula and the Veil nebula, all early images.
He then paid tribute and showed some photos of famous people he has met, such as Dr Alexander, Sir Patrick Moore, Euan Whittaker, Leonard Sims, Sir Harold Spencer Jones (Astronomer Royal), Clyde Tombaugh (who discovered Pluto), Harrison Schmitt, and Alan Sheppard. It was interesting to see among all these photos one of Gilbert himself as a young man.