Abstract: Supermassive black holes, million to billion times more massive than the Sun, are now believed to lurk at the centre of every galaxy. Furthermore, it would appear that supermassive black holes "know" in which galaxy they live, as bigger galaxies contain bigger supermassive black holes and vice versa. This suggests that the formation of galaxies and the growth of supermassive black holes are tightly linked, which is surprising considering that despite their tremendous mass such black holes are still much smaller than their host galaxies, just like DNA molecules to a human body.

Here's Prof Doyle with the synopsis of his talk.......

"The first part of the talk is on solar flares, how they occur, their energy, etc .. then I go into stellar flares and show data from Kepler on flares from solar-like stars and discuss whether such super-flares could occur on the Sun .. i include spot data over the past 300 years .. what is happening now, predications for the next cycle, how a super-flare could occur on the Sun .. plus observations from 900 years ago."

Observing at Delamont Country Park is ON tonight Sat 6th Oct

Throughout most of its long history astronomy has been based on the study of light from the stars and other celestial objects. In the language of physics this is photonic astronomy, the photon being the quantum mechanical particle of light. Yet at least two other astronomies are possible according to standard physics. The graviton, the particle asssociated with gravity, and the neutrino, associated with the weak force, share the property of being electrically neutral and stable and can thus propagate undeflected over cosmic distances.

IAA President Brian Beesley does the introduction and Webmaster Paul Evans gives a guide to the September Sky. Enjoy!