@petabosley
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Registered: 9 years, 9 months ago
Like many others, I'm a child of the Space Age and avidly followed NASA & Russian efforts. I was lucky enough to get replies from NASA and the Russian Embassy when I wrote to ask them for information and, from that moment, I was totally hooked! That led me to study Astrophysics at Queen Mary College, University of London in the early 1970's, although jobs in the field were so rare then that the College started putting "Physics" on the BSc Certificate instead of "Astrophysics" so employers weren't scared off. Since then, I worked in IT (IBM) for 25 years and, after retiring, have returned to my true love by joining the Hampshire Astronomical Group, where I arrange the monthly Public Lectures (non-members always welcome, see http://hantsastro.org.uk/publictalks/index.php or our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/clanfieldobservatory/ for details). I also take part in public visits to the Clanfield Observatory site, particularly with students from the University of Portsmouth, who attend as part of their degree course. I have also had an interest in Palaeontology and Anthropology for over 40 years, which has rather naturally led me into an exploration of Astrobiology leading to me delivering a talk to the visiting UoP students annually on this subject and also to a short talk at the BAA ARPS Exoplanet conference at Clanfield. I engage in more general public outreach in the local area. I am involved with the Meteor monitoring at HAG where we have 3 (video) meteor cameras and contribute our data to the UKMON & NEMETODE UK monitoring networks where it is eventually consolidated at the European level. This allows the individual camera records to check for multiple station "hits" for a single meteor so that orbits can be calculated. I have a particular interest in the geology of meteorites and their formation and, when we deliver external talks on the subject, this is the area that I concentrate on. I am currently a member of the BAA Board of Trustees, having previously served on the Council for two years.
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