General News About RAC Events and Meetings. Will appear on the front page.
16 RAC members and a few guests gathered to watch and photograph the annual Geminid meteor shower Thursday night/ Friday morning. While everyone pursued different activities, all fought dew, frost and cool temperatures that reached into the upper 20s. The sky conditions were just good enough for imaging and visual observers to have some success. We had no clouds, but transparency was surprisingly mediocre due to significant atmospheric aerosols and high humidity. Transparency improved during the post-midnight hours but never…
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We had a nice turn out for RAC’s November 9th RACOBS, approximately 20 or so members and about 8 guests were present at one time or another. The skies were very clear and the seeing was quite steady. However dew was a factor later in the observing session. The last of us packed up and headed home about 1:30am.
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If you ever had any questions about the observing lists or even what they are, this was the meeting to attend. Brian Reasor explained about the Raleigh Astronomy club and the Astronomy League lists. He went over many resources and even had props. He went over practical issues. There was a great deal of interest among club members and a lot of useful suggestions. It was a good meeting.
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On Saturday, October 20th, RAC held a public observing session at one of Raleigh’s newest parks, the Annie Wilkerson Nature Preserve. Over 75 members of the public came out to enjoy the night skies despite the cloud cover.
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Seven members went out to Big Woods for some observing on Friday, October 19. Field conditions were ok – just a little damp and the moon washed out the western sky til 9:30ish but everyone worked around it and there were decent skies by 10:30. Brian Reasor did some list work and sky touring and most everyone else was imaging. The last members left about 1:30 in the morning. One of the big hits was that there was lots of…
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Observing conditions were excellent at this year’s Staunton River Star Party. Many RAC members stayed for the entire event and even more stayed for several days of cool, clear observing weather. As usual, the facilities were very good and the skies dark with the Milky Way seen horizon to horizon
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The clear weather of fall is back! A large group of amatuer astronomers came out to the Big Woods site on Friday October 12 with approximately 27 people present. There were many good fall objects to be seen and there was a decent passage of the space station early in the evening, followed by simultaneous Iridium flares of magnitudes -3.5 and -5.8. The last observer left by 1 AM.
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The presentation by Matt Lochansky explained the steps used to do spectroscopy, basic theory, what a person could do using spectroscopy, limitations, resources, equipment, data processing, and show some of the interesting objects in our sky. Matt had many examples to help illustrate his points. The presentation was a good one and it generated a lot of questions.
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The weather forecast for this month’s RACOBS was truly puzzling. Various club members collaborated throughout the day questioning the suitability of the weather for observing. Late in the day, most parties agreed that observing conditions would likely be decent, but not excellent. The decision to hold RACOBS turned out to be a good one. The gate was opened at 7:30pm for 4 waiting carloads of astronomers and equipment. Several more joined us over the next few hours.
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This was a good talk by our co-chair Ian Hewitt. We also tried out a new venue at the Daily Planet Cafe. So you could enjoy the talk and dinner as well. The talk began with a history of how Pluto was discovered. It was discovered in 1939 in the Lowell Observatory. It was named after the Mythical God of the Underworld, not the dog.
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This month’s meeting featured “Astrobiology – The Search for Alien Life” by Dr. Mike Malaska In order to understand how to find life beyond the Earth, Mike began his presentation with a review of how life formed on Earth. The questions “What is life?” and “When did life begin?” were addressed. Mike explained that life is chemistry and life began on earth 3.8 billion years ago. Life started from water and small organic molecules. The talked then focused on bacteria…
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Cloudy weather prevented an outdoor observing session (RACOBS), so a dozen members & guests attended an informal meeting at the Museum. The evening’s roundtable topic was ‘cleaning optics’. Following on the theme of the previous weekend’s optics cleaning session at NCSU, techniques were shared for cleaning eyepieces, mirrors and Schmidt-Cassegrain corrector plates.
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On Saturday, 07-Jul-2012, RAC had an opportunity to help NCSU students refurbish NCSU Observatory scopes and eyepieces. This event had been coordinated through the RAC Officers and NCSU Astrophysics department as an effort to revitalize NCSU’s Observatory. An additional benefit to the event was that of providing sustainability for future classes of rising astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists. This sustainability was achieved in two ways: Eyepiece Cleaning and Scope Maintenance.
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There were a three attempted observing sessions during the month of June. The sessions occured on June 15th, 16th and 22nd. A brief synopsis of each follows: June 15 – Impromptu Observing session at Bigwoods: Sky conditions for this event were simply amazing and offered a rare clarity that is seldom seen in the later spring and early summer months. Five RAC members were on hand for this event. Mike Keefe provided the following account of the session:
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Speaker: Michel Tournay 2012-06-28 – June General Meeting This was a very informative and interesting talk. Michel Tournay is a repeat speaker and a very good one. He is a prolific photographer and an avid solar eclipse chaser. He gave two talks for the price of one.
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