• Embroidered RAC Garments

Phyllis Lang brought the garments that people had ordered.  If you ordered clothing, but were not able to come to the meeting, contact Phyllis Lang to get your shirt.  She had one or two that people had not picked up.

  • Equipment was demonstrated for members


Two pieces of equipment were demonstrated for members. One was something that will hold a cell phone to a telescope to take pictures with the cell phone.  It also works well with binoculars.  The other piece of equipment was used to track a star for a camera taking photos.  This was a very interesting device.

  • Observing Session Coming up

October 12th. The NRC will sponsor the International Observe the Moon Night.  This will be on a Saturday.  Volunteers are needed to set up scopes and to escort visitors to the top floor of the parking deck.  This is a really good time, since the moon will not be full.  The times for the observing is from about 7 to 9.  The Daily Planet Café will have a special presentation about the moon from 6-7pm.  Then everyone will go to observe.  You can set up at 6pm or so.  You can get really close to the top floor, but do not park on the top floor.  Contact the officers, if you can help out.

September 20th. Boy Scout Sleep Out.  This will start at 7pm.  It is located at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Knightdale, NC.  The address is 8400 Poole Road.

First Fridays in October and November.  RACOBS will beon the first Fridays for October and November, instead of the second
Fridays.  The dates will be 10/4 and 11/1.  This change is only for this October and November.

  • Visit to CAAC (Charlotte Amateur Astronomy Club)

Matt has arranged for a tour of the CAAC.  This is November 2nd and you must RSVP with Matt.  Here is his write up in the Yahoo
groups.  Stay tuned as the date gets nearer.

The Charlotte Amateur Astronomy Club (CAAC) has graciously invited a delegation from RAC to see their dark site and understand what it takes to start up a private observing location.

We’ve been invited out on Sat. Nov 2, coinciding with their club star party. The plan is to meet at 4pm for a facility tour and stay past sunset to see how club members use the site. We’d leave after a few hours to get back home at a reasonable hour. The location is about 3 hours away (according to Google Maps, from the NC Museum of Nat. Sci) and I propose we carpool.

You must RSVP with me if you’d like to attend.

We have bad timing with holiday schedules and lunar calendars this year, so the visit may happen regardless of sky conditions – to be determined closer to the date.

  • Imaging Meeting Test Location and time

The Imaging meeting is set for 9/19, which is a Thursday.  It will still start at 7pm.  The location is the conference room behind the Brickhouse restaurant.  The conference room is in the Royal as is the Brickhouse.  If you are not sure, I would go into the Brickhouse and ask.  The Brickhouse will be serving dinner in this conference room.  You can order from the menu.  The address for the Brickhouse is 3801 Hillsborough Street Raleigh, NC.  It is across the street from the Meredith entrance.

This conference room is $100 dollars to rent.  The Brickhouse offered to take 50% of this (under the assumption that there would be enough people ordering dinner to make a profit) and the club will take the other 50%.  In order to keep this location, the club needs to decide if we want to support this fee of $50 per meeting.  This would add up to $600 dollars per year.  This goal of this test meeting would be to see if it is worthwhile to keep this as a meeting place.

Please let Steve Izzo know if you are planning on coming or if you have any questions.  Also, if you have any ideas about how to handle the fee, please let Steve know.

  • Currently no speaker for the November and December meetings.