General News About RAC Events and Meetings. Will appear on the front page.
The morning of Sunday November 3rd, 2013 saw a rare hybrid solar eclipse. The type of eclipses has features of both an annual and total solar eclipse. Unfortunately, here in North Carolina, the eclipse was already well underway at sunrise and only showed as a partial eclipse. Although the morning dawned quite cool, several groups went to locations in North Raleigh and Cary to view the event. The weather was very clear and with a low horizon, it was a…
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The October indoor meeting features Gary Stephenson, Chief Meteorologist for Time Warner’s News 14, speaking on his interest in astronomy and the challenges of communicating astronomy and science related topics to the general public. This was also the first regular meeting held in the new Nature Research Center on the new Thursday schedule. The new venue was really great!
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While a large contingent of RAC members attended the Staunton River Star Party, some of those that were not able to get away still took advantage of the very good weather do some observing. One group of six went to the Big Woods site and 5-6 people traveled to Howell Woods. After a dreary summer, it was great to gather some photons, no matter where it was done!
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The September observing session lived up to everyone’s expectation with cool, but not cold temperatures and good skies. The Milky Way was clearly visible from Big Woods and made for a very nice site. About 20 members and first time guests attended the event. Mike Keefe and Doug Lively gave the visitors and first time attendees a lot of help and good advice on telescopes. Way to go!! Joe Pedit also shot this image of the southern sky and the…
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The September indoor meeting feature and on-line presentation from Tom Field, contributing Editor to Sky & Telescope magazine. Tom, from his home in Seattle, provided a great introduction to affordable spectroscopy for amateur astronomers that was both informative and very entertaining.
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After a summer of rain and generally poor observing conditions, late August brought some clear skies with favorable moon conditions and photon-starved members went have gone and taken advantage of the conditions, including this wide field view by member Joe Pedit (used with permission).
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The August meeting featured the annual Club Social event. This is always popular with the members and there was a really good turn out this year. Many members brought a wide array of food items, including some great desserts!
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The Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak the night of the Monday Aug. 12th thru to the morning of Tuesday Aug 13th. The best times to view will be from 10:30pm to 4:00am. We are keeping our fingers crossed for good weather. The best place to view the Perseids, or any meteor shower is a location with unobstructed views as close to the horisons as possbile and away from city lights. Here is link to an article written by one…
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Unfortunately we have had quite a string of clouded out RACOBS. In general, we have had rather poor weather for astronomy since mid-spring of this year. For August’s clouded out RACOBS, we had an informal meeting at the Museum where a fellow member gave a presentation of his recent visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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The weather was not favorable for the RACOBS in July, so there was an informal meeting at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. This meeting featured a frank discussion on what kind of things the Club is doing, what we should be doing, and what may be possible to do. There were a number of interesting ideas for the officers and members to discuss in the coming years and a lot of good feedback.
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Speakers: Ian Hewitt, Mark Lang, Joe Pedit, Steve Izzo, Chris Cole This was a special meeting for the elections, not to mention that the weather did not cooperate for a RACOBS. This meeting showcased various club members’ photos. It was very interesting and there were a lot of questions. Five club members that presented were Ian Hewitt, Mark Lang, Joe Pedit, Steve Izzo and Chris Cole. At the end of the meeting there were announcements about presenters that will be…
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Amateur Astronomy – The Next 50 Years. Johnny Horne reflects on his time spent in the hobby…and plans for the future. Johnny Horne started off talking about where he grew up and lived his entire life. This is Stedman, NC. He had the advantage of being able to see the same sky his entire life. He has been interested in astronomy since age ten. The other topics included his observatory, the eclipses that he has seen and a general talk…
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On 6/15/2013, several members took advantage of the nice weather to go out to Howell Woods
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Six intrepid members traveled to Howell Woods for a night of viewing and imaging on Thursday, May 30. Favorite objects, and these are just a few, were Saturn, M16,M51,M81-82, M57, M65-66, and a number of globular clusters.
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Although attendance at the May Imaging Meeting was light (as often happens this time of year), but everyone still had an enjoyable and interesting time.
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