Overview of the Exhibition	Part of the crowd at this years Exhibition

Astro-Expo 2005 went ahead on November 19, 20 in DCU's the Hub despite venue difficulties.  This years Astro-Expo 2005 was run in association with the Discover Science and Engineering project, the British Council Ireland, and DCU Astrosoc. 
One of the highlights of this years was The Space Exhibition which was brought in from Manchester by the British Council Ireland for the exhibition.

The Discover Science and Engineering Project as usual provided invaluable support to the event in the form of goodies and freebies as well as helping to cover costs.

Clare Casey and Rory Rudden at the Astronomy Ireland stand	Amy and Fiona Farrar at the Junior Section

Another feature was the RoverBot challenge.  It was great fun and involved programming of robots.

The British Council Roverbots attracted great attention	Oisin McConamhna's brilliant lecture on String Theory

There were five lectures in all over the 2 days instead of six as one had to be cancelled due to a flight delay.  The quality of the lectures was as usual top class.  Mike Redfern from NUI Galway started off proceedings with a superb lecture on Blackholes.  This was followed by Oisin McConamhna's, what can only be descibed as brilliant lecture on String Theory.  Finishing up that day with Larry Barr's excellent "Comets in the Classroom and Other Tales from Texas".  Larry is attached to Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas, U.S.A. where they are doing great things with a revolutionary Robotic Telescope.

On Sunday the first lecture was given by Ashleigh McFadded of Inishowen Planetarium.  Ashleigh is much in rocketry.  He launches his own rockets from the back of the Planetarium in Donegal.  These rockets are not fireworks but are several feet long and very sophisticated.  He showed a video of a launch.  I have to say it was very impressive.  The next lecture was by Allan Trow of the University of Glamorgan on the Galaxy Classification System.  What a fantastic lecture it was.  

 List of Exhibitors

• British Council Ireland (Space Exhibition & RoverBot Challenge)
• University of Glamorgan, Wales.
• Inishowen Planetarium, Donegal.
• European Space Agency (Space Quiz)
• Armagh Planetarium
• Astronomy Ireland
• Astronomy and Space Shop
• Astrosoc - DCU Astronomy Club
• Brownstown Observatory (Meath)
• Kingsland Observatory (Roscommon)
• DCU Astrophysics
• Natures Treasures (Meteorites etc)
• NUI Galway Astrophysics 
• NUI Maynooth Physics with Astrophysics
• UCD Astrophysics
• UFO Society

List of Lectures and Lecturers 

1:00pm "Black Holes - The Irish Connection" 
by Prof. Mike Redfern NUI Galway.

3:00pm "String Theory Cosmology" 
by Dr. Oisin MacConamha, Imperial College, London.

5:00pm "Comets in the Classroom and Other Tales from Texas"
by Larry D. Barr, Assistant Planetarium Director. Tarleton State University, Stephenville,
Texas, U.S.A.

Sunday 20 November

1:00pm "Selling Science" 
by Ash McFadden, Inishowen Planetarium, Donegal.

3:00pm "Galaxy Classification System" 
by Allan Trow, University of Glamorgan.  

5:00 "Einstein and the Cosmos" 
by Aidan Smoker, School of Physics, UCD. (Unfortunately lecture was unavoidably cancelled due to a flight delay)

Order lecture DVD HERE