Category: 2017 Royal Astronomical Society

Filmings and Finales

So much to catch up on this blog, where to to begin, probably where I left off, week of 18th Sept.

When I didn’t think there could be more variety, lo and behold, there it was. After starting off the week continuing some policy work on the EU and some more video project work, I helped supervise a teacher training event the RAS was holding as part of ESERO’s “Misson X” programme. Learning about the Education & Outreach side to the society was really interesting.

I also attended a filming for a new episode of Objectivity, a youtube series focussed on antique objects, whilst also doing some behind the scenes research for it.

Also in my last week, I started rounding up some of the longer projects I had been working on.

  • Monday was recording the videocast project I had been working on for the library and also editing the video.
  • Tuesday I handed off the EU policy work that I had been working on the entire time, (which apparently might be handed around the organisation as an information booklet)
  • Tuesday and Wednesday, we’ve had the Prince’s Trust here performing a filming project, which I have been assisting in multiple ways such a
    • Researching various instruments such as Sutton Quadrants and Nocturnals to able to explain how they operated
    • Being interviewed on physics and astronomy, answering questions given by the public on what it would be like to visit various bodies

Round-up :

I’ve massively enjoyed working at the Royal Astronomical Society and would recommend working there or just visiting generally. A huge thanks to everyone there for hosting my placement.

Don’t forget: SPACE IS AWESOME

Richard Out!

Open House and Meetings Galore

Been another hectic week of mixed activities at the RAS. Start off by continuing on with my EU project work , apparently leaving a multinational organistion is  quite confusing. Started reaching some conclusions on that front with the UK’s relation with the EU. On the rest of the policy front, I started and finished drafting the targeted MP letters for the RAS, and then was given the task of compiling a list of MPs with relevant interest.

Doing a little research work for the library, I helped catalogue some books to move to the reserve collection. Who knew that there used to be dictionaries of famous people, which contained their families and addresses?

At the end of the week I started a research task trying to find who had gifted an 18th century Arabic celestial globe to the RAS, which involved sifting through old records the society maintains.

I also attended a couple meetings with the acting executive director over a PhD careers event in Manchester and the working comms group of the UKSA which gave me some good insight about the external work it does with government organisations and companies. It covered events such as new scientist live and press work for the Cassini Grand Finale. (RIP Cassini ! )

On Saturday, I helped the RAS with their Open House event, as part of the Open House London Weekend. This involved showing people the library, which was used to display the archives, and answering the public’s questions on astronomy, which got quite technical, with questions like “Where is the centre of the universe”?

(Pretty picture on the right shows some cool things, the big picture showing Cassini’s map of the moon. On the left there is a “log” from the “tree” where the “apple” “fell on “Newton’s” head.)

Jack of all trades : My first week at RAS

So I just finished my first week at the Royal Astronomical Society, on an internship funded by the Charity Insights scheme, (which I guess you’ve figured out, by finding this blog). The Royal Astronomical Society is the national learned society covering Astronomy, Astrophysics and surprisingly, Geophysics. It’s nearly 200 years old, celebrating its 200th Anniversary in 2020.

The headquarters of the RAS are in Burlington House, just off Piccadilly and they are surrounded by a plethora of other societies, such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Geological Society and the Royal Academy of Arts. (On the left is a pretty picture of the entrance for the RAS)

With the first week of my internship over, I’ve been working mainly between assisting with the library(pretty picture featured), outreach and education and some policy work.

I hit the ground running on Monday, being given a project by one of my supervisors, the head of library and archives, Sian. The project consisted of producing a short guide on using the Astrophysical Data System, a database run by the Smithsonian holding information on Astrophysics, Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics papers. I firstly got familiar with the system, never having used it before, and took Monday and Tuesday to draft it.

However! I was also given a policy project looking into possible arrangements of the UK’s science & technology relationship with the EU post-Brexit, specifically over arrangements regarding Horizon2020. Now this is something that has been incredibly meaty and head-racking, taking up quite a bit of my time and something that will probably take up quite a bit of my time over the remaining 3 weeks. Albeit it being confusing and lengthy (just like the Brexit negotiations!), it has been quite interesting finding and ingesting the EU legal documents on the subject.

On Tuesday, apart from the previous two projects mentioned, I partook in a teacher tour, where a group of teachers were shown the variety of activities that the RAS provides in outreach, such as demonstrations on the composition of a comet(using dry ice!) and some of the archives/antiquities they possess, like Caroline Herschel’s observations diary (The first woman to ever be paid as a Scientist, if you have time, google her story).

My Thursday and Friday continued in the same vein in regards to my policy work, but I also attended meetings regarding some other projects RAS is working on, such as a PhD careers event and assisting the City of Westminster Library. I also got my first taste of cataloguing and archiving.

So far, the experience has been a great change of pace and it’s been amazing working in an organisation which is all about space!

My next week includes continuing my EU research, drafting letters to send to politicians and helping prepare for the Royal Astronomical Society Open House on Sat 16th September, which I will also be assisting in.

Signing off until next week,

Richard