Monthly Meeting April - Little Red Dots
2026-04-13 20:00 - 21:00 (Pacific/Auckland) | Stardome Observatory & Planetarium, 670 Manukau Road, Epsom, Auckland, 1345
100 years ago this year, Edwin Hubble published the first conclusive evidence that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way. This lecture, using new results from our latest space telescopes and ground-based instruments, surveys the diversity of systems that we’ve found since, from giant and beautiful spirals to mysterious Little Red Dots.
This lecture was recorded by Chris Lintott on 18th March 2026 at Conway Hall, London.
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’.

Northern Star Party – April 17th to April 19th 2026
2026-04-17 16:30 - 2026-04-19 11:00
Dark Sky Weekend
We are excited to announce the dates for the Northern Star Party for 2026 to held at Waharau Regional Park and hosted by the Auckland Astronomical Society. We are holding the event over the nights of Friday 18th and Saturday 18th of April. Packing up on the morning of Sunday the 19th.
It will be a weekend of practical astronomy and dark sky observing. It is great opportunity to spend a weekend viewing the sky from a dark site, on Moonless nights, though a range of different telescopes. Bring your telescope or binoculars, but if you don’t have any there will be plenty there for you to look through. Also the society has telescopes available for hire though the hire will have to be set up prior to the camp. For rental enquiries, please email rental@astronomy.org.nz

During the day on Saturday, there will be a full program of practical astronomy – how to use equipment and various types of telescopes, new equipment demonstrations and an astrophotography workshop.
Films will be shown in the early evening on Friday and if appropriate on Saturday.

Prices
Members
Non-members

Early Bird paid by 12th April
$30
$40

Late bookings
$50
$60

No one night price.
To book, please log into Hello Club……….Click here for link.
From the Hello Club page, you will need to log in.
Program:
Friday: Viewing, movie (TBC)
Saturday:
Workshops: 1:00pm to 2:30 pm.
Solar Viewing during the day on Saturday.

Time
Activity
Details

13:00
Dwarf Mini and Dwarf 3 compact Smart Telescopes by Dwarf Lab
This presentation outlines their design, operation, and real-world performance in imaging deep-sky objects. Also covered is tracking, image capture, stacking, processing and using their Stellar Studio processing suite.

14:00 – 14:30
Easy Image Stacking for Beginners

Why stack?
Stacking demonstration
Stacking tips
Survey of stacking software

16:30 – 18:00
Telescope trail
Telescope trail

For the full information pack, click here.
Some possible visual observations on the nights
Some visible with the naked eye, some through small telescope
