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Nicholas A Walton, Silvia Dalla, Eduardo Gonzalez-Solarez, Anita Richards and Jonathan Tedds show off the fast-developing astronomical applications of the UK's virtual observatory service. AstroGrid has moved a few steps closer to the ideal virtual observatory and the latest release provides easy access to a range of international data sources and relevant astrophysical tools. Here we demonstrate the capabilities of this single interface for a variety of astrophysical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RAS is offering one last chance to apply for grants towards International Year of Astronomy activities, but you'll have to apply soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre talks about the challenges of changing cultures and continents through his career, as well as the UK plans for International Year of Astronomy 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The RAS President wants dark skies to be part of any changes to planning permission laws in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This year's annual UK Solar Physics Meeting was held in parallel with the National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham, from 4–8 April 2005. Bill Chaplin and Robert Erdélyi report on proceedings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now the deserved scientific and media excitement of the 2004 transit of Venus has passed,Allan Chapmanoffers a brief account of the career of Jeremiah Horrocks, who predicted and observed the 1639 transit. British research astronomy began in 1693, when Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree observed the transit of Venus in 1639. They were the only two people to observe this event and their observations and their own predictions that prompted them were a turning point on the journey from the classical astronomy of documentation and tabulation to the modern idea of observation, prediction and comprehension. The transit observations made by Horrocks from a small village in Lancashire, spurred on by inaccuracies in the tables that constituted the bulk of astronomy at the time, were the foundation for much of the flowering of astronomical thinking in Britain during the late 17th century. Despite the early deaths of both Horrocks and Crabtree, and thanks largely to the efforts of contemporary north-country astronomers, Horrocks's work on the transit was recognized both among the British scientific elite at the Royal Society and among the European pioneers of the modern astronomy, one of whom put Horrocks on a par with that of Galileo, Gassendi and Kepler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tim Sumner of Imperial College summarizes the community report on fundamental physics in Britain prepared for PPARC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]