In 1848, Andrew Graham stared through the telescope at Markree Observatory in County Sligo and saw a new object. He had discovered an asteroid – a chunk of rock left over from the formation of our Solar System 5 billion years ago. Metis (as it was named) was the ninth asteroid ever discovered world-wide and the only one discovered from Ireland – until 2008…

His talk will take you on a whistle-stop tour through our Solar System and put asteroids into context – where are they? How did they get there? Where are they going? The presentation will touch on the various discoveries made from Ireland and will mention some of the previous asteroid impacts on Earth and some very close-shaves.

Speaker: Dave McDonald

Dave McDonald has so far discovered two asteroids, an eclipsing binary star and published two papers on asteroid rotations, all from amateur observatory “J65 Celbridge”, Co. Kildare, The presentation is highly graphical and requires nothing more than an enquiring and interested mind.