

2022 abstracts
Opening Night Reception
The Festival Opening Event takes place at 7pm on Friday 4 November 2022 in Ballycroy Visitor Centre. This event will include a drinks reception, a short performance by cellist Patrick Dexter and, weather permitting, some walking and stargazing outdoors. This launch event has no entry fee, but we are obliged to charge a small registration fee of €2.
Ballycroy Visitor Centre
19:00 (approx)

Astrophotography Exhibition
Stunning night-time photographs by Josh Matthews and Aisling McGuire will be on display in Ballycroy Visitor Centre throughout the festival weekend. Entry is free and no booking is required. Josh and Aisling will also be giving an astrophotography workshop at 12 noon on Saturday 5 November - places are strictly limited and must be booked in advance
Ballycroy Visitor Centre
All Day

Kevin Gaston
Understanding of the occurrence and environmental impacts of artificial light at night is growing very rapidly. This talk will highlight how artificial light has become an increasingly pervasive impact on the natural world, how it needs to be considered in those terms rather than as simply having localised effects on some particular kinds of plants or animals, and how we need to respond accordingly.
Mulranny Arts Centre
10:00

Conor Ryan
On this Seashore Safari you will explore the marine habitats at Mulranny Beach and learn
about the creatures that live there (weather permitting).
Meet your guide Conor Ryan at Mulranny Beach at 10am
PLEASE NOTE - children must be accompanied by an adult for the Seashore Safari
Mulranny Beach
10:00

Derek Dempsey
For those of us just starting on our journey of discovery, Derek will introduce us to the wonders of astronomy. He will give an overview of some basic concepts in Astronomy, looking at the evolution of our universe and how stars and planets are formed, leading on to a star's life cycle and how stars' colours and distances are measured. Along the way, some famous astronomers, who have made significant contributions to these topics, will be mentioned. The talk will conclude with a look some practical aspects of getting started in Astronomy and being out there under the night sky.
Hotel Newport
11:00

Planetarium Shows
The StarDome, BCO's portable planetarium will be making an appearance once again at our Dark Sky Festival!
Shows will run Saturday (11:30am, 12:30pm and 3pm) and Sunday (11:30am, 12:30pm and 3pm) and will give you and your family the chance to discover the wonders of the night sky in their inflatable dome.
Each show lasts 20 minutes and is FREE. With a limited capacity of 25 people per session, we suggest getting there early. If you do miss a show or it is full, you can always come back for the next one!
There is plenty of free parking at Newport Nationals School.
Unfortunately the Dome is not wheelchair accessible
Newport National School
11:30 | 12:30 | 15:00

Josh Mathews & Aisling McGuire
We'll be talking through the basics of landscape astrophotography. We'll cover what's good to photograph in Ireland, when to photograph it (including forecasting and planning) and basic setup. We'll give practical examples from our own experiences and talk a little bit about camera settings at the end. We'll leave time after the presentation so that if you like, you can bring your own camera and we'll look through the right astrophotography settings together.
Ballycroy Visitor Centre
12:00

Chasseurs de Nuits
UPDATE 31 OCT - this event cancelled due to family illness
The Photo Nightscape Awards are one of the most important photo awards in the world. This 9th edition saw more than 500 photographs submitted from more than 20 countries. Any photographer can enter in the 5 categories offered: Nightscape, In Town, Black & White, Smartphone and Timelapse. For the first time, the winners are exhibited in Ireland at the Mayo Dark Sky Festival - the festival's official partner.
In 2023, the Chasseurs de Nuits association, which organizes the Photo Nightscape Awards, will celebrate its 10th anniversary, so follow us on our social networks and prepare your cameras, we have a lot of nice surprises in store for you!
Ballycroy Visitor Centre
Open all Day

Prof Mark McCaughrean
After more than three decades of development, construction, integration, and test, the
NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope was launched from French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021 before six months of complex deployment and commissioning in orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point. In this talk, I'll give an overview of the scientific rationale for this astonishing machine, the technological challenges that had to be overcome in realising it, some insight into the early scientific results, and possible breakthroughs that it promises now that it is in full operation.
Hotel Newport
16:00

Colin Guilfoyle
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is currently running from 2021-2030, with the aim of stopping and reversing habitat degradation worldwide. Restoring ecosystems can have huge benefits, both for humans and biodiversity. My talk will discuss opportunities for restoration within the Park, focussing on the area known as the Nephin Forest, and how my PhD research will support potential restoration activities.
Mulranny Arts Centre
10:30

Rebecca Senior
Law governs just about everything we do on Earth, but what about our activities in space?
Who owns the moon? * Who owns, or should own, material mined from an asteroid? * What is the extent of liability if a country acts negligently in space? * Whose laws apply on a spacecraft? * Is anyone bound to act to save an astronaut in need? * How does the law need to evolve in the face of the commercialisation of space?
These are just some of the questions which arise from the fascinating and ever evolving area of space law. Space law is the body of law which governs space activity encompassing a range of areas from public international law to specific areas of commerce. This talk will give you an introduction to the area and attempt to answer some of these questions.
Mulranny Arts Centre
11:30

Miracle Puppets
Experience how a piece of silk and 5 wooden balls come to life. The WORKSHOP lasts approx one hour and costs 10 euros per child. Places are strictly limited to 10 children, and all children must be accompanied by an adult (but don't worry, accompanying adults go free!)
Afterwards children can dance their own puppet on the stage at the PUPPET SHOW, along with the Miracle Puppets cast of characters, including Hans, Ann Caithlin, Little Hans, Hugo and Reinhard.
WORKSHOP places are strictly limited, PUPPET SHOW open to all and free
Mulranny Arts Centre
13:30 (workshop) | 15:00 (show)

Prof Sera Markoff
The night sky may seem pretty dark and empty but it is full of billions of stars, galaxies and, perhaps most intriguingly, black holes. Black holes are one of the weirdest byproducts of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity: objects so compact that not even light can escape. Dormant black holes are a challenge to discover, however when they get lucky enough to capture and "harvest" nearby matter, whether dust or asteroids, or even planets and stars, they become not only visible but extremely bright, across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The fact that they have an event horizon leads to a prediction that if we only had a good enough telescope, we should see a ring of light surrounding a dark "shadow" indicating that point of no return. In 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a planet-sized array of radio telescopes, managed to see exactly this for the solar system sized supermassive black hole in the M87 galaxy, and just this past May we revealed the supermassive black hole in our own Milky Way's centre! I will talk about the Universe's most bizarre characters (IMHO) and the EHT results, as well as answer your questions about black holes!
Hotel Newport
14:30

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ
From angels and demons to photons and quarks, we’ve always been curious about how the universe works. But every cosmology, from materialism to Catholicism, is based on assuming things that we may not even realize we are assuming: things we take on faith. And so our cosmologies can be as fun and quirky as the people who invented them! We’ll look into the stories behind how St. Paul, St. Augustine, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, and on up to Stephen Hawking, have all cast their own peculiar take on the big questions of the universe.
Hotel Newport
16:00

Closing Event
We close our 2022 festival with a fluorish! Festival goers will take part in a Lantern Walk from Hotel Newport up to the iconic 100 year old St. Patricks Church, where Kerem Asfuroglu will describe our ambitious plans for re-designing the lighting in Newport town to help it become the first Dark Sky Friendly town in Ireland.
Duo Datahann will then deliever a short performance with harp and clarinet in the church before we all say our goodbyes - until next year.
[This event is FREE for all festival ticket holders (so hold on to those tickets!) All others €5 at the door]
St Patricks Church Newport
18:30
