LUAstro Newsletter - November 2025
A great freshers success, daylight saving, and what's to come over the next month
Welcome!
Welcome to the second edition of the new LUAstro newsletter! Before we start, we’d like to thank everyone for their support following our first edition (which you can find here). Whilst we had a few technical teething issues, these have all been ironed out, and the publication of this edition should be a little smoother. November brings with it earlier evenings (thanks to daylight savings - more on that later) and longer and colder nights, so don’t forget to bring gloves and a hat to any observing nights, and make sure you take your vitamins!
October recap
The first month of term has been a busy one for us here at LUAstro. Freshers fair was a great (albeit very loud and overwhelming) success, and we loved meeting so many of you; some new and some familiar. We now have over 130 members! If you are reading this and are not yet a member, you can join us officially here; we welcome both staff and students.
We’ve also run several interesting socials, with our particular favourites being Dr Mat Smith’s introductory talk, and our pumpkin carving social in collaboration with the Physics Society.
On the same evening, we ran a James Webb data processing workshop. With a turnout of over twenty members, it was great seeing so many creative and different interpretations of the same data. Some members chose to process NGC6611 Eagle Nebula, whereas some chose region NGC3324 in the Carina Nebula.
The society also held their most popular social of the year so far, visiting Miss Whalley’s Field in the city to watch the Gregson Festival Group Bonfire night and Firework display.
The weather this past month has been particularly poor, with only a single observing night having been run by the society. Despite this, Leo O’Hara, one of our brand new members, still managed to get some cracking shots. You can find more of his work on his Instagram @leoastrophotos.
Despite some electrical issues with our AZ-EQ6 tracking mount, John and Finlay were able to capture this image of Andromeda.
Daylight Saving - a Brief history
October the 26th marked the end of British Summer Time, and thus the moving back of every clock in the UK by one hour (except for the one on the microwave - that one is always wrong). This means, at least to start with, we will receive sunlight for a bit longer in the evening, but we will of course have to wait a little longer for the sun to rise in the morning. Whilst it is a relatively routine occurrence for us Brits, only a third of countries globally participate, with the majority of these being in Europe and North America. So why exactly do we follow daylight savings here in the UK, and is it still relevant?
Due to our latitude, the amount of daylight received in the UK varies drastically throughout the year. The Earth’s pole isn’t actually perpendicular to its orbital plane, it is in fact inclined at 23.4° relative to the normal to the plane. The direction in which this inclination is remains constant as the Earth orbits the sun due to the conservation of angular momentum, and so whilst the north pole might be pointing towards the sun during the British summer, 6 months later, as we are on the other side of the sun, it is pointing off in to the cold darkness of space. Looking at the Earth-Sun axis side on, the terminator (the line between day and night) is vertical, whereas the axis of rotation is skewed. This means that for points close to the poles, the proportion of a rotation spent on the sunny side of the terminator varies depending on the orientation of the axis relative to the sun, in other words, the number of daylight hours received in the UK varies throughout the year. Whilst many countries’ equatorial latitudes mean they see little variation, some of Europe and North America’s relatively high latitudes lend themselves especially to daylight savings as a means to maximise the number of productive hours available at sociable hours.
The idea of daylight savings goes back millennia, with several ancient civilisations having had similar mechanics for extending productivity during the winter hours. But the proposal of modern daylight savings may be attributed to British-New-Zealand entomologist George Hudson. Born in 1867, Hudson spent his early life in the UK, moving to New Zealand at the age of 14, where he started working at the Wellington post office. It was during his tenure at the post office, working inconsistent and unsociable shifts, that he came to appreciate the importance of daylight after conventional work hours, and it was this which spurred him to write his 1895 paper “On seasonal time-adjustment in countries south of lat. 30°”. He argued that daylight savings would reduce the excessive use of artificial light, and that it would provide more opportunity for working class individuals to enjoy time outside of their working hours, both of which were found as very agreeable points by many, so many in fact, that he published a second paper expanding upon his ideas in 1898. It is thus Hudson who is largely regarded as the father of modern daylight savings, so much so that upon the founding of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1933, he was one of the first recipients of the T. K. Sidey Medal for his “outstanding scientific research concerning electromagnetic radiation” - the other recipient was none other than Ernest Rutherford.
Despite the traction gained by Hudson, it wasn’t until 1908 that modern daylight savings was first implemented, by the small city of Port Arthur on the shore of Lake Ontario in Canada. This was followed a little while after by the German Empire and its wartime ally Austria-Hungary in 1916. Only three weeks later, Britain followed suit, as did most of its allies, despite having spent the past five years shooting down repeated proposals in their respective parliaments.
Whilst many countries dropped the system following the end of World War One, Britain, Canada, France, and the United States continued. During the second world war, several countries, Britain included, implemented double daylight savings, where the clocks were shifted by two hours instead of the usual one. This was dropped following the end of the war. Whilst many countries have come and gone from the list of those who follow DST, the energy crisis of the 1970s once again caused Europe to widely adopt it, with the list of those who follow it having remained relatively stable ever since.
The usefulness of daylight savings has been hotly debated since its conception, with Astronomer Royal, Sir William Christie having said of it “[it is] nothing but special legislation for late risers”. Conversely, Winston Churchill spoke favourably of the change, stating that it increases the “opportunities for the pursuit of health and happiness among the millions of people who live in [Britain]”. Its modern relevance is still contested, with some suggestions existing to shift the clocks back by an hour all year round due to its resulting improvements in road safety, however this was strongly opposed by those farther North, as this would lead to much of Scotland not receiving any sunlight until about 9:30 a.m. during the winter. Here in the society, we can attest to the problems sometimes caused by DST, as last year, we finally got to the bottom of an issue with one of our tracking mounts positioning itself incorrectly; it was running an hour fast. To avoid such issues, professional astronomers use Universal Time (UTC) to ensure seamless global coordination. So, regardless of whether you enjoy that extra hour in bed in October, or detest that hour less in April, it is unlikely to change any time soon...
Coming up this month
Whilst the dates have not been finalised, over the next month, we plan on continuing our weekly socials. On Wednesday the 12th of November, we will be running a board game night in collaboration with Lancaster University Scuba Society! Meet us at 7pm in the physics atrium, and prepare to lose… We will also be going searching for bats with the Lancaster Uni Conservation Society, taking part in a Q&A with a pair from the European Space Agency, and hosting our very own LUAstro Christmas lectures. Make sure to keep an eye on our social media for further details! Until next month, that’s us over and out.
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