1. Mars Near Crab Nebula One curiosity we omitted from the Sky Diary in the September issue of Astronomy & Space magazine is that the planet Mars passes just 50 arc minutes from the Crab Nebula (M1) on Sept. 16/17 and will be fairly close for several days either side. David Grennan has created this webpage to help you locate the supernova remnant, see www.astronomy.ie/marscrab.html where you will get lots more details. It should be possible to see the planet and the Crab in the same low power field of view so send in any sightings to observe@astronomy.ie If you take a photo please send it in to gallery@astronomy.ie This links in nicely to the excellent lecture about Supernovae that Stephen Smartt gave last Monday. The DVD of this can be ordered at www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html for just a few euro and I would highly recommend this particular talk (www.astronomy.ie/lecture200709.html) to you. Jupiter is a fantastic sight this month and several events involving its moons are listed in the magazine so order the current issue at www.astronomy.ie/sub where you also see all the photos sent in this month, sightings we have received, feature articles, all the latest pictures from space and lots more besides. You really are missing out on lots of information and sights to be seen if you are not getting the magazine in the post every month. It costs less than 4euro a month after all, so please sign up now at www.astronomy.ie/sub and support us. 2. Moon Landings Film in I.F.I. The Irish Film Institute have a Documentary Film Festival this month "Stranger Than Fiction". On Sunday Sept. 16 they will screen "In the Shadow of the Moon", a film about the Apollo Moon landings with all the surviving moon-walkers telling their own story. Sounds fascinating so check out www.irishfilm.ie/cinema/sdispfilm_07.asp?SID=134&filmID=5638 for more details. 3. Star-B-Q Report Around 600 people came from all around Ireland to Wicklow for last weekend's Star-B-Q to make it the biggest Telescope event Ireland has ever seen. This will help raise much needed funds to help Astronomy Ireland promote astronomy all around the country, principally by subsidising the cost our monthly colour magazine which you should all get, so a big thank you to everyone who came. Leo Enright gave a superb 3-D talk on Mars as our main speaker of the evening. A vast array of telescopes were laid out on the playing pitch with special offers on all telescopes being made by our Shop staff (you can still get these money off offers until the end of September. Food and refreshments were served and skies were clear at the start of the evening when we got to see Jupiter and some other sights. It clouded in after a while so we are going to set the telescopes up again for ticket-holders (if you are a ticket-holder and you did not get an email about this recently please reply now giving the name your tickets were purchased under, and we'll send details). A full report with loads of pictures is now online at www.astronomy.ie/sbqsept07rep.html click on each picture for a bigger photo. RTE TV NEWS did a report that was broadcast on Monday, see it here: www.astronomy.ie/video/rte_starbq.php Astronomy Ireland www.astronomy.ie Telescopes & Advice Tel (01) 847 0777 Monday-Saturday