About The York Astronomical Society (YAS)

The York Astronomical Society (YAS) was formed on a brisk spring evening in April 1952, when six amateur stargazers met in the back room of the Red Lion pub in central York. They were united by a shared fascination with the night sky and a frustration that nobody else seemed quite as excited about Saturn’s rings or lunar craters. The society’s founder, a local schoolteacher named Harold Fenwick, brought along his prized 4-inch refractor telescope, and by the end of the night, they’d drafted a constitution (on the back of a beer mat), elected a chairman, and declared their intent to “bring the stars a little closer to York.”

Back in the ‘50s, space was still the stuff of science fiction. But that changed quickly. When Sputnik 1 launched in 1957, YAS members gathered on the old city walls to scan the skies for the little Soviet satellite. They didn’t spot it (York's weather didn't cooperate), but they did make the local paper for their efforts.

In 1969, YAS held an all-night “Moon Party” to celebrate the Apollo 11 landing. Around 300 people turned up at a field just outside the city—armed with flasks of tea, binoculars, and a radio playing live coverage. Someone even brought a cardboard model of the lunar module. It rained (again), but spirits were high. To this day, it’s remembered as one of the society’s proudest moments.

The 1970s saw the society grow steadily. They moved meetings from pubs to the more respectable surroundings of a local school and began hosting regular public observing nights. In 1977, they fundraised to buy a 10-inch reflecting telescope, nicknamed “The Beast,” which is still in use today (albeit with some modern tweaks).

When Halley’s Comet returned in 1986, YAS organised a series of talks and viewing nights. The weather was—predictably—poor, but enthusiasm was sky-high. Even the BBC came to film a segment, though only fog appeared on the footage.

The 1990s were a time of technological change. Members began experimenting with astrophotography, and in 1997, a new digital CCD camera transformed what they could capture. That same year, the Hale-Bopp comet lit up the skies and drew hundreds of newcomers to society events.

YAS celebrated the turn of the millennium by launching a “Stars for Schools” outreach programme, bringing telescopes into classrooms and giving students their first glimpse of Jupiter’s moons. In 2004, they built a modest observatory just outside the city, thanks to a National Lottery grant and an army of DIY-savvy volunteers.

When the New Horizons probe flew past Pluto in 2015, YAS marked the occasion with a Pluto-themed night—complete with frosty cocktails and trivia quizzes. The arrival of James Webb Space Telescope images in 2022 inspired a gallery exhibition of member-captured deep space objects, proving that even amateur astronomers could keep pace with the professionals.

Now, over 70 years on, the York Astronomical Society boasts more than 150 members, from schoolkids to retirees. Though the weather remains unreliable, the passion never dims. As Harold Fenwick once said, “We may not reach the stars, but we can certainly look at them properly.” And in York, they still do—clouds permitting.