Our colleagues in the Galway Astronomy Club will stage the 5th Galway Astronomy Festival in the Westwood House Hotel, Galway with an impressive line up of speakers from Ireland and the U.K. Several of us were at last year's festival and we can highly recommend it. We will be attending this year as well. Here is a brief programme of events to whet your appetite:

09.00: Registration
10.00: Official opening of the Galway Astronomy Festival
10.15: Dr. Matt Redman:"Is Pluto a Planet?"
11.30: Dr. Mark Lang: "Exploring the High Energy Universe with VERITAS"
12.45-1400: Lunch.
13.20: Telescope building workshop Michael O’Connell
14.15: Dr. Nicholas Devaney: "Detecting Extra solar planets with Giant Telescopes"
15.30: Tea/coffee break/ Sale of Raffle tickets.
16.00: Dr. Simon Green: "Stardust: A New View of Comets?"
17.15: Announcements/ AOP / Raffle Draw.
18.00: Tour of NUI Galway Telescopic Observatory
19.30: GAC 10th Anniversary Banquet
20.30: John Flannery: "American Astronomy in 2007"
22.00: Observing Session at Rosscahill (weather permitting)

Accommodation is available for those travelling from outside Galway and a group of Dublin members are travelling over on Friday evening if you want to join us for dinner that night. Details of accommodation and lots of background to the speakers and events are at http://galwayastronomyclub.ie/fest08a.html

Astronomy Ireland Chairman David Moore will be there along with David Grennan who writes our Sky Diary and will display some of his astrophotos and work so we hope every member in Galway and surrounding counties will come along and say hello. We have hundreds of members in the area so we hope to see as many of you as possible.

The Astronomy Ireland Telescope Shop (www.astronomy.ie/shop) will be there with a display of telescopes and special offers that will apply on the day only - so bring your cheque book and you could save hundreds of euros! Carl O'Beirnes from the AI Shop will be there running the stand.

2. Telescope Offer

Those of you who get our magazine in the post every month should have received the February issue (with details of the Total Eclipse visible from Ireland next month! order at www.astronomy.ie/sub) and inside should have been a special offer as part of our Shop's New Year Sale. You can order this telescope online at:

www.astronomy.ie/offer

Or view the advertisement for this offer at www.astronomy.ie/FirstScope114sale.doc

But hurry, this offer is only "while stocks last" as they say!

FREE delivery anywhere in Ireland is included in this offer.

3. Colm J. Cannon Memorial

On Wednesday January 16th at 11:30am a tree will be planted in the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre (Dublin) as a special memorial to Astronomy Ireland founder Colm J. Cannon who recently passed away unexpectedly. January 16 would have been Colm's 39th birthday. An obituary for Colm was published in the December issue of our magazine on page 46 www.astronomy.ie/colmjcannon.html . You are welcome to go along to the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, where Colm worked, to pay your respects at the ceremony on January 16th at 11:30am.

Astronomy Ireland

www.astronomy.ie

Ireland's Only Astronomy Magazine

One of Europe's Biggest Telescope Shops

Tel (01) 847 0777 Mon-Sat