BAA One Day Spring Meeting 2024

The BAA One Day Spring Meeting will be held in Greenock near Glasgow on the topic of “The Music of Space”.

You can buy a ticket for this meeting by following this link to our booking page. Access the 25% discount code for BAA members by clicking here (you must be logged in to the BAA website). Enter the code by clicking “promo code” above where you enter your name on the booking form.

Adult: £9 member / £12 non-member

Under 16: £4.50 member / £6 non-member price

Programme

9.30 – Registration
10.00 – BAA President & Marion McNeill Inverclyde Sky Watchers Welcome & Introduction
10.15 – Dr Alexander Mackinnon FRAS Honorary Research Fellow (School of Physics and Astronomy) – “The Evocative, Revealing Radio Sounds of Space Plasmas”
11.00 – Coffee/Tea Break
11.30 – Professor Martin Hendry MBE FRSE FINSTP FRAS (Clerk of Senate & Vice Principal (Academic Services) Glasgow University) “Gravitational Wave Astronomy: Listening to Einstein’s Universe”
12.15 – Lunch (choir will set up while we are at lunch)

13.15 – “Voices of Argyll” will open the second half of the event and will be conducted by National & International Musical Director Alison McNeill M.MUS
13.45 – Clara Brasseur – School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews “Hearing the Light: Astronomy Data Sonification”.
14.30 – Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS FInstP (Title of presentation to be confirmed)
15.30 – Coffee/Tea Break
16.15 – Nick James BAA – Sky Notes

Lunch

There are plenty of places in the area for lunch, as well as a cafe at the venue. The venue cafe has limited capacity, so attendees will need to book a table to guarantee a place. Be aware that you are not permitted to eat your own food in the cafe.

Please follow this link if you wish to book a table in the cafe at the venue: Beacon Arts – Beacon Cafe & Bar (beaconartscentre.co.uk)

Alternative lunch venues include:

• The Exchange, 2 Ann Street, Greenock PA15 4RQ
• Tail O’ The Bank, Rue End Street, Greenock, PA15 1AH
•  Scotts, Greenock Ocean Terminal, 8 Custom House Way, Greenock PA15 1EG
• James Watt, Wetherspoons, 80,92 Cathcart Street, Greenock PA15 1DD
• KFC, Custom House Way, Greenock PA15 1EG
• Taco Bell, 15 Custom House Way, Greenock PA15 1EG
• If the weather is good, then of course you could bring packed lunch to eat outside and enjoy the view.

Hotels

There are a variety of hotels in the area, though we cannot vouch for them. There is a Premier Inn, Tontine Hotel, The New Waterfront.

Voices of Argyll conducted by Alison McNeill

The choir will sing three short pieces that show the inspiration and the wonder that normal everyday people hold in their hearts for the sky at night. The songs will tie in really well with the theme title “The Music of Space” Their last song is the very first song sung in space in 1962 by Ukrainian cosmonaut, Pavio Popovych called “Watching the Sky” which is very apt as we have a lovely Ukrainian refugee in the choir who has three sons fighting on the frontline.

Venue

The Beacon Arts Centre, Custom House Quay, Greenock, PA15 1HJ