On May 5, The Astrophysics Group at the Physics Department of the University of Bath paired up with the Bath Astronomers amateur society to participate in this year’s edition of the “Somerscience” festival, held at the Haynes Moter Museum in Sparkford. Held for the third time, the festival is an annual event designed to showcase the research and development in STEM taking place in the area from both the academic and industrial communities. As in previous years, the festival has been a big success, welcoming over 5,000 visitors. It included over 80 activities, ranging from visitor stands with information and hands-on activities to workshops, public talks and various shows.

The Bath Astrophysics Group participated for the first time this year, with most of its members from postgraduates to staff joining in to engage with the visitors of the festival. Its information stand highlighted striking images from astronomical observations and research at Bath and displayed two of the teaching telescopes provided from the Bath Physics Observatory by Dr Steven Davies. Dr Carolin Villforth and Astrophysics Research Group Leader Dr Hendrik van Eerten delivered a public lecture on “the extravagant universe”, taking the audience on a tour of black hole astrophysics from stellar black holes and cosmic explosions to supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies.

A similar theme was the topic of two planetarium shows running throughout the day, managed by the Bath Astronomers. The shows are public engagement outputs from the multi-institute research grants Bid4Best and AHEAD2020, which had involvement from Dr Villforth and Dr Van Eerten respectively. Both grants were funded under the Horizon 2020 Funding Programme of the European Commission.