Dates for your diary

I have arranged an Ipswich Society visit to Colonel Tomline’s fine Victorian observatory in Nacton for the evening of 28 February 2008. Designed and built in 1872 by Architect John MacVicar Anderson, the observatory houses a 10 inch telescope made by local engineer Wilfred Airy (son of Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy of Playford). The Orwell Astronomical Society Ipswich (OASI) runs the observatory now, maintaining it in excellent condition and using the telescopes for night sky viewing. Our host for the evening is OASI member Paul Whiting FRAS who will give us a guided tour of the observatory and telescopes and a peek at the heavens if the weather permits. Caroline Markham

 

The Grand Tour

Members might be interested in a series of six illustrated talks entitled ‘More than a Holiday: Travellers to Eighteenth-Century Italy’ to be given by Hugh Belsey, former curator of Gainsborough’s house in Sudbury and a leading authority on art and society of the Eighteenth Century. The talks will be given on Monday afternoons (2.15pm) starting on 22 October at Ipswich Institute. Tickets for the whole course are £38 or £8.50 per lecture. Details obtainable in a brochure from Ipswich Institute.