(Submitted 2026-06-30)

Recent Events:

  • June 4 – The Hartwell (Raleigh)
    • Coordinator: Steve B
    • Volunteers: Blair, Mark, Brian, Sarah, Steve B
    • Recap: Steve B –
The Hartwell is a challenging site to observe from, due to being near downtown Raleigh and having trees on three sides. The west is almost completely blocked and we couldn’t observe Jupiter or Venus from the rooftop. Blair brought out a solar telescope early, but the whole area near the building was in the shade. He brought his Dobsonian reflector down to the sidewalk in front of the building so that folks could observe Jupiter. The event was scheduled to run from 8:00-10:00pm, but they advertised it as starting at 7:00pm, which is when people started dropping by. I was only able to see Arcturus and Vega around 9:00pm which is when I was able to align my goto SCT. I observed Mizar, Melotte 101 (which is too large for even my widest field eyepiece), and M13, which was very dim. The sky never really got dark, even near the zenith. Turnout was between 15-20 people, who were good sports very understanding of our predicament. We would up wrapping up at 9:45pm.
Note to self: don’t schedule any more events at the Hartwell during daylight savings time.

 

  • June 5 – First Fridays with TLC at Three Bear Acres (Creedmore)
    • Coordinator: Ana V
    • Volunteers: Blair, Yvonne, Rob, Mark, Kathleen, Patrick, Vincent, Jim, Sunil, Karthik, Lauren, Ann, Mary Clare, Jesus, Paul, Al, Nance, Jim P

 

  • June 17 – The Willard Rooftop (Raleigh)
      • Coordinator: Steve B
      • Volunteers: Blair, Susan, Dean, Yvonne, Mark, Steve B
      • Recap: Steve B –
Skies were clear enough to provide mostly continuous views of the Moon and Venus before sunset, which allowed the attendees who were assembling before 8:00PM to observe something. Jupiter became visible not long after sunset (side note: it was impressive to see the separation between Venus and Jupiter than occurred in only a week). Mercury was close to its highest eastern elongation of the summer, but I was never able to find it visually and was only able to see it with binoculars. In addition to observing the Moon/Venus/Jupiter, Dean also impressed attendees with his EAA image of M51 from his Celestron Origin. At least 50 people attended.
Note to future volunteers: Dobs are not great for observing objects near the horizon on that rooftop.

 

 

Upcoming Events:

Notes:

The Outreach Committee is looking for volunteers to coordinate events and assist at events with or without a telescope. To join the committee send a blank email to [email protected]. Any club member is welcome, regardless of experience level. We will train you! To volunteer for an event, register via the RAC Calendar event entry.

Event coordinators: please send an email after the event to [email protected] indicating:

  • How many RAC members volunteered.
  • Estimate of how many attendees were present.
  • Brief synopsis of the event: what interesting things were observed, attendee reactions, host impressions, etc.