On Thursday evening, Matt Dawson was the guest speaker at the Ireland Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce (ILCC) Christmas event held at the Éirelux Irish Pub in Howald.
After Joe Huggard, ILCC Chairman, had dealt with the formalities of the chamber's AGM, Matt Dawson, one of the participants in the 2016 ILCC Innovation Contest, delivered a fascinating presentation on astronomy.
He started by recalling how he started to become interested in astronomy from a young age and how technology and the advent of space exploration have advanced at extraordinary speeds, with Voyager 2 now having left our solar system. He also referred to the recent announcements concerning Luxembourg positioning itself for future asteroid mining.
He owns an observatory an hour's drive from Luxembourg, which is not affected by a city's (light) pollution, allowing for clear, dark skies; he showed some photographs of the night sky there, as well as a number of planets, etc., taken from their telescope.
He advised those who may be interested in exploring the night sky, that purchasing a decent telescope for €2-300 is all that is needed for decent equipment, and that he would be delighted in sharing his knowledge and experience.
He touched on the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the constellation Orion, the nebulus of which is primarily gas, and the aftermath of supernovas. He talked about stardust and gravitationally-linked double stars as well as star clusters, the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy.
The second half of the evening involved Stefan Ziegenhagen presenting craft beers and Irish craft brewing. Contrary to industrial breweries in Munich, Ireland has many craft or micro breweries. In the 1800s there were circa 200 breweries in Ireland, but by 2007 there were just 22 remaining. There are now around 50 micro breweries around Ireland (low volume - just 1.5% of total national sales - but high quality), many of which use ingredients outside of just hops, barley and water (a Christmas beer contains Cinnamon, for example; another has milk and cocoa). Around 60% of beer consumption is lager, 30% stout and 10% ale.
The first generation presentation were those like Dara's beer, with the Celtic Tiger producing a second generation such as Galway Hooker. Craft beers are not only for local sale and consumption, but are now ofter sold internationally - one just has to see the range of Irish craft beers in the Éirelux shop and Irish Pub.
Alcohol contents range from 4.3% for traditional-style beers to up to 7.3% for US-style beers, with some Belgian-style beers even up to 11%.
Irish Chamber Studies Craft Beers and Galaxies at Christmas Event
On Thursday evening, Matt Dawson was the guest speaker at the Ireland Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce (ILCC) Christmas event held at the Éirelux Irish Pub in Howald.
After Joe Huggard, ILCC Chairman, had dealt with the formalities of the chamber's AGM, Matt Dawson, one of the participants in the 2016 ILCC Innovation Contest, delivered a fascinating presentation on astronomy.
He started by recalling how he started to become interested in astronomy from a young age and how technology and the advent of space exploration have advanced at extraordinary speeds, with Voyager 2 now having left our solar system. He also referred to the recent announcements concerning Luxembourg positioning itself for future asteroid mining.
He owns an observatory an hour's drive from Luxembourg, which is not affected by a city's (light) pollution, allowing for clear, dark skies; he showed some photographs of the night sky there, as well as a number of planets, etc., taken from their telescope.
He advised those who may be interested in exploring the night sky, that purchasing a decent telescope for €2-300 is all that is needed for decent equipment, and that he would be delighted in sharing his knowledge and experience.
He touched on the moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the constellation Orion, the nebulus of which is primarily gas, and the aftermath of supernovas. He talked about stardust and gravitationally-linked double stars as well as star clusters, the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy.
The second half of the evening involved Stefan Ziegenhagen presenting craft beers and Irish craft brewing. Contrary to industrial breweries in Munich, Ireland has many craft or micro breweries. In the 1800s there were circa 200 breweries in Ireland, but by 2007 there were just 22 remaining. There are now around 50 micro breweries around Ireland (low volume - just 1.5% of total national sales - but high quality), many of which use ingredients outside of just hops, barley and water (a Christmas beer contains Cinnamon, for example; another has milk and cocoa). Around 60% of beer consumption is lager, 30% stout and 10% ale.
The first generation presentation were those like Dara's beer, with the Celtic Tiger producing a second generation such as Galway Hooker. Craft beers are not only for local sale and consumption, but are now ofter sold internationally - one just has to see the range of Irish craft beers in the Éirelux shop and Irish Pub.
Alcohol contents range from 4.3% for traditional-style beers to up to 7.3% for US-style beers, with some Belgian-style beers even up to 11%.
Photo (L-R): Stefan Ziegenhagen; Joe Huggard, ILCC; Peadar Carpenter, Irish Ambassador; Matt Dawson
