The past academic year has been an exciting and enjoyable year at AstroSoc. There have been many highlights during the weekly meetings and others outside of these. An event that has shone through as great successes have been the camping trip to Dorset on the southern coast which included hot beach trips in the day followed by late night observing sessions with the local astronomical society, a weekend that was thoroughly enjoyed by all that attended. At the beginning of the year the second attempt of the high altitude balloon project marked a great occasion for AstroSoc, this attempt I am happy to say was successful and gave us some wonderful pictures from the edge of space (37km).
One of the most important sides of AstroSoc is an active outreach culture, for which there has been proactive participation by a wide proportion of the membership. This includes days at Birmingham Library, outreach days to the public, private outreach to local schools and also becoming an integral part of the newly founded Astronomy in the City monthly outreach events run by the School of Physics and Astronomy. This society wide interest for outreaching to the public has been personified and recognised particularly in our Outreach Officer, Callum Bellhouse who recently won the Outreach award at the EPS Societies’ Award evening.
Only a few of the numerous exciting activities on offer at AstroSoc have been given above and as the year came to close a number of members have commented on the exciting time they have had, the friends they have made and also the things they have learned during their year with AstroSoc. We now look forward to the coming year and welcoming a host of new students to join us at AstroSoc.
If you would like to get involved with our Astronomy in the City events, please keep an eye on our websites:
https://www.facebook.com/UoBAstrosoc
Paul Carter
Chair of the University of Birmingham Astronomical Society