Auckland Astronomical Society

Auckland Astronomical Society Founded in 1923 and now with over 600 members, Auckland Astronomical Society is one of New Zealand's largest.

Founded in 1923 and now with over members, the Auckland Astronomical Society is New Zealand's largest Astronomical organisation. We are based at the Auckland Observatory and provide for all levels of interest and expertise in astronomy. We are committed to educating our members in the science of astronomy and to keeping them up-to-date with current astronomical developments and discoveries. The Society members provide voluntary support for the Auckland Observatory public programs.

23/08/2026

Film Night August - Cosmos - 45 years Later - Heaven and Hell

A reminder that Film Night is on this Monday 24th August at Te Whatu Stardome Observatory, 8 pm.

This Month we are continuing a revisit of the Cosmos Series - 45 Years later.

Heaven and Hell
Subject: Comets, asteroids, and impacts (Tunguska, Venus greenhouse); planetary evolution and catastrophes.

Chicxulub crater confirmed as dinosaur extinction cause (1980s–1990s); multiple impact threats mapped (NEOWISE, etc.).
Venus: confirmed runaway greenhouse; no life but extreme lessons for Earth climate.
Jupiter’s Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact (1994) observed live; DART mission (2022) demonstrated asteroid deflection technology.

Hope to see you all there.

21/08/2026

Timelapse of the recent Total Solar Eclpse taken from Valadolid, Spain with our Dwarf Mini, captured by AAS member and head honcho of Astronz Andrew Buckingham

16/08/2026

Practical Astronomy
Monday 17th August at 8:00pm, Te Whatu Stardome Observatory
Astronomy Software for Amateurs.

Speaker/Host Bill Thomas

This month will be an overview of Astronomy software for amateurs, particularly Sky Charting software for desktop and mobile. We will also cover some available options for telescope mount control, image capture and processing.

10/08/2026

Emerging Astronomers Group
Monday 10th August at 7:00pm, Te Whatu Stardome Observatory

Emerging Astronomers returns with Tim Sol. Sorry about the late reminder.

Speaker/Host Tim Sol.

Is There Life on Venus?
We’ve changed our minds about that several times. In the 1950s we pictured a warm jungle world. Then multiple spacecraft found a surface at ~400°C that destroyed every lander we sent. Now the question has reopened, this time about Venus’s clouds, and about a chemical signal nobody can explain.

Tim Sol is a Year 11 student at Wentworth Computer Science College, Auckland, and the new leader of the AAS Junior sessions, having volunteered with the Society through 2026’s Matariki solar-telescope outreach. He is a 2025 “15@15 Youth Building Democracy” winner and placed 3rd in the 2025 “Mars 2040” Space Competition (Arts & Business College of London). He founded and led his previous school’s Space Club and co-runs Open Process (a YouTube channel about engineering, robotics, and AI).

09/08/2026

Monthly Meeting
Monday 10th August at 8:00pm, Te Whatu Stardome Observatory

Shining a Light on Dark Matter

Carnegie Science Observatories postdoc Andrew Robertson focuses on one of the key mysteries in contemporary astronomy: the nature of dark matter. We know that this mysterious form of matter makes up about 85 percent of the mass in the universe, but astronomers still don’t know exactly what it is. Drawing on his experience as a former postdoc at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Robertson will explain how astronomers came to believe that dark matter exists, and how some gargantuan collisions of galaxy clusters—particularly the famous "Bullet Cluster"—provide some of the strongest supporting evidence for its existence. He’ll demonstrate how these extreme cosmic collisions can be used to probe the fundamental properties of dark matter itself. Dr. Andrew Robertson - Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Science Observatories.

This is a rebroadcast of a Carnegie Science Lecture.

02/08/2026

Introduction to Astronomy
Monday 3 August at 8:00pm, Stardome Observatory.

Titan: Earth's Frozen Twin
by guest speaker Jonathan Park

In many ways, Saturn’s moon Titan looks uncannily familiar: dunes like those in Earth’s deserts, mountains, branching river channels, rain, lakes, and seas. But here, methane takes the place of water, and frozen water stands in for solid rock. Beneath Titan's thick orange haze lies a world near minus 180 °C, where chemistry, climate, and the possibility of life follow entirely different rules. This presentation explores how we get there, what we find, and what NASA’s Dragonfly mission hopes to discover when it arrives in the 2030s.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

26/07/2026

Film Night July - Cosmos - 45 years Later - Harmony of the Worlds

A reminder that Film Night is on this Monday 27th July at Te Whatu Stardome Observatory, 8 pm.

A revisit of the Cosmos Series - 45 Years later - Episode 3.

Harmony of the Worlds

Subject: History of astronomy from astrology to Kepler’s laws; Ptolemy, Copernicus, Brahe, Galileo; scientific method triumph. 45 Years Later:

Kepler Space Telescope (2009–2018) discovered thousands of exoplanets using transit method, validating Kepler’s laws on a galactic scale.

Gaia mission (2013–) mapped precise positions and motions of >1 billion stars, refining galactic structure.

General relativity tests passed with ever-higher precision (e.g., gravitational waves, LIGO 2015).

Hope to see you all there.

19/07/2026

Practical Astronomy
Monday 20th July at 8:00pm, Te Whatu Stardome Observatory
Equatorial Mounts: Why we use them and how they work.

Speaker/Host Steve Hennerley

Why does a telescope need an equatorial mount, and what makes it different from simpler fixed or altitude–azimuth designs? This beginner-friendly talk starts with the basic problem of following objects across the night sky, then uses practical examples and simulations to explain tracking, field rotation and the deceptively simple idea behind an equatorial mount.

Curator of Instruments, Steve Hennerley, follows the development of telescope mounts from early transit instruments and seventeenth-century helioscopes through to modern computer-controlled equipment. He then moves into the practicalities of setting up an equatorial mount in the Southern Hemisphere, including finding true south, levelling the mount, polar scopes, drift alignment and electronic polar-alignment tools.

No previous knowledge is assumed, making this an accessible introduction for visual observers and anyone beginning to explore astrophotography.his will be one of our seasonal Planetarium sessions.

Patrick and Tim showing people the Sun at the Manu Aute Kite Day at Puketāpapa Mt Roskill until 3:00 pm today (Sunday).
12/07/2026

Patrick and Tim showing people the Sun at the Manu Aute Kite Day at Puketāpapa Mt Roskill until 3:00 pm today (Sunday).

11/07/2026

Monthly Meeting
Monday 13th July at 8:00pm, Te Whatu Stardome Observatory

Pluto is not a Planet

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union adopted a definition of a planet that demoted Pluto to just one of what is likely hundreds of dwarf planets in our Solar System. Exploring the remote Kuiper Belt, this lecture challenges us to think about what kinds of scientific questions are worth our attention, what it means to name something – and why Pluto is worth caring about anyway.

This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on the 3rd of June 2026.

Professor Chris Lintott is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Research Fellow at New College.

Having been educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and University College London, his research now ranges from understanding how galaxies form and evolve, to using machine learning to find the most unusual things in the Universe, to predicting the properties of visiting interstellar asteroids. He was the founder of the Zooniverse citizen science platform, which provides opportunities for more than two million online volunteers to contribute to scientific research, and which was the topic of his first book, 'The Crowd and the Cosmos’. His latest book is ‘Our Accidental Universe’.

Professor Lintott is best known for presenting the BBC's long-running Sky at Night program, and as an accomplished lecturer. Away from work, he cooks, suffers through being a fan of Torquay United and Somerset cricket, and spends time with a rescued lurcher, Mr Max. He can often be found at the helm of Oxford’s science comedy night, ‘Huh, That’s Funny’.

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PO Box 24-187, Royal Oak
Auckland
1345

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