Aurora Trip Membership DVD Shop 1. Astronomy Ireland to Feature on Today With Pat Kenny RTE Radio One has been voted the top radio station in the world, and in our regular round-up of astronomy news with David Moore and Pat Kenny, Astronomy Ireland will feature on Pat Kenny's flagship chatshow on RTE Radio One this Thursday morning, June 28th. David Moore last featured on Today With Pat Kenny in April, and you can listen to that interview HERE. We have worked out a list of topics in current Irish astronomy with the RTE team that we hope will be discussed on Thursday morning, including eerie noctilucent clouds, our two July pubic lectures, Jupiter 'colliding' with the Moon, and the launch of our own rebranded magazine, Astronomy Ireland. For a full list of topics that we hope to talk about, please click HERE. You can listen to Today With Pat Kenny on the RTE website or on radio, and we will also put a recording of the interview on our website at www.astronomy.ie/audio soon after it is broadcast. David Moore also featured on the award-winning dramatisation The Reindeer Santa Left Behind last Christmas. You can listen to it HERE. 2. Public Lecture and DVD: 'The Birr Telescope and the Big Bang' The European City of Science is Dublin this year. Our main event to celebrate this special year is Dr Cormac O'Raifeartaigh's excellent lecture on how Ireland contributed to modern cosmology. He will describe the construction of the world’s largest telescope at Birr Castle in Ireland by William Parsons, the Third Earl of Rosse, in the 1840s. Astronomy at Birr Castle played an important part in the development of the Big Bang model of the Universe. Using his Leviathan telescope, Parsons discovered the spiral structure to mysterious 'nebulous' objects in the night sky, which we now know to be galaxies. This work aided astronomers in developing a theory that the Universe evolved through time into the Universe we see now, from something very different in the past. The lecture will take place at 8pm next Monday, July 2nd, in Trinity College Dublin. Order tickets and DVDs here or call (01) 890 11 11. Dr O'Raifeartaigh has given talks for Astronomy Ireland in the past, DVDs of which can be ordered HERE. 3. Astronomy Summer School - Offer Extended! To give people tuning into Pat Kenny on Thursday morning a chance to hear about our new Summer School, we are extending our special offer of €20 off the enrolment fee for our Summer School until Friday, June 29th! An Introduction to Astronomy is a new set of classes developed by Astronomy Ireland to give newcomers to astronomy a good grounding in observational astronomy. Students will learn about the constellations, the Moon and the Sun, the history of astronomy, how telescopes work, and what to see in the night sky. The course is ideal for those who want to get more out of their stargazing sessions, without being going into the more complex details of astrophysics and cosmology. The Astronomy Ireland Summer School will commence on July 18th and run each Wednesday for four weeks. To book your place now at the special reduced rate of only €120 (€80 for members), please visit www.astronomy.ie/summerschool Astronomy Ireland The world's most popular Astronomy Club www.astronomy.ie ( subscribe / unsubscribe )