Our upcoming talk on October 7th entitled "A Slice through Time: Dendrochronology & Catastrophic Encounters with Comets " by Proffessor Mike Baille at the Westwood House Hotel.
Just some info on the man
The annals of astronomy are streaked by unexpected comet burnouts and breakups. Over the next two month a new Comet could become a spectacle in the morning first and then the evening sky , Exactly how bright comet ISON will become, how wide and long it will grow, and whether it will put on a show remain unknowns.
In anticipation of this event we have a very special talk by Professor Mike Baille, one of the worlds leading experts in the field of dendrochronology, or dating by means of tree-rings. In the 1980s, he was instrumental in building a year-by-year chronology of tree-ring growth reaching 7,400 years into the past.
Early indications showed a series of severe environmental downturns around 2354 BC, 1628 BC, 1159 BC, 208 BC, and AD 540. The evidence suggests that these environmental downturns were wide-ranging catastrophic events and he believes that impacts from cometary debris may account for most of the downturns, especially the AD 540 event.
He has written five books including The Celtic Gods: Comets in Irish Mythology that focuses on the AD 540 event as recorded in the historical records and myths of ireland and shows that the imagery in the myths and the times between events are consistent with a comet with an earth-crossing orbit similar to P/Encke, as described by the British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier. His latest book, New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection (Tempus, 2006), shows how the tree-ring and Greenland ice core evidence and descriptions in annals, myths and metaphors adduced in support of the global environmental downturn at AD 540. All welcome
Ronan Newman
  