General News About RAC Events and Meetings. Will appear on the front page.
On June 10-12, 2015 Raleigh hosted the 43rd AMS Broadcast Meterology conference. Broadcasters from all over the country converged on the Civic Center for presentations and meetings. They also were treated to a sidewalk observation session from the Raleigh Astronomy Club. On Thursday, June 11, several members came out and set up on the sidewalk to provide views of celestial objects. Despite the city lights and storms in North Raleigh and Cary, the skies downtown were clear and seeing very,…
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John Sinclair from the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) gave an excellent talk on NC meteorites for our May meeting. John is the curator of the meteorite collection at PARI (Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute) in Rosman NC near Brevard. The PARI site was originally a NASA tracking station during the 1960s and 70s and later became a DOD satcom site. Today, PARI is a non-profit institute supporting radio and optical astronomy research and education. We learned that there are 29 sites in…
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Each April, as part of the North Carolina Science Festival, dozens of State Wide Star Parties are held. This year was no different. The Raleigh Astronomy Club supported 4 different star parties this year: Howell Woods, Four Oaks – April 18 New School Montessori Center, Holly Springs – April 21 Annie Louise Wilkerson Nature Preserve Park, Raleigh – April 24 Prairie Ridge EcoStation, Raleigh – April 24
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Speaker: Phyllis Lang For our April meeting, long time RAC member Phyllis Lang gave an excellent talk on Binocular Astronomy. Phyllis described the different types of binoculars available for astronomy use, how to get the most out of them and what objects look best in binoculars. Many people assume that the best astronomy observing is done with the biggest telescopes. But many objects – the moon, large open clusters and large nebula look as good or better through binoculars. Binoculars offer a wider field of…
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Is there any intelligent light out there? Not if we’re talking about the way we light our cities. Paul Bogard, author of The End of Night, gave an outstanding talk at our March meeting on light pollution and what we miss when we lose a dark night sky. About 100 people attended this joint meeting of RAC, the Audubon Society and the NC Herpetological Society to learn more about the impact of light pollution on the environment and our well being.
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Winter can be the best time of the year for Astronomy if you do not mind bundling up. The air is at its driest and clearest of the year and the stars just seem brighter. Or it can snow a lot, be overcast and totally shut the hobby down. That was our club experience in February with most of our events, including the indoor meeting, lost to bad weather. But you can never keep a good man down. The RAC snowman was…
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The Raleigh Astronomy Club and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences held our Astronomy Days 2015 event in downtown Raleigh over the weekend of January 24th and 25th. Over 14,000 visitors of all ages attended this year. Our visitors enjoyed dozens of exhibits, attended presentations and participated in workshops on a wide range of astronomy topics. This year’s event had a Pluto and Outer Solar System theme with presentations covering the New Horizons mission to Pluto, Comets and the Kuiper Belt.
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We got January off to a good start with over 20 club members and guests attending our monthly observing session at Big Woods. Comet Lovejoy was a popular target and easily found next to the Pleiades. Alan Dyer, a Canadian astronomy writer, produced this beautiful image of Comet Lovejoy and the Pleiades.
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SteveChristensen, Ph.D. provided a very engaging presentation on back holes to almost 50 members and guests in attendance at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. The presentation was also streamed live via the club’s Google + account and is available for viewing on the club’s YouTube channel at http://youtu.be/x3EqklJbDCg. The presentation covered many aspects of black holes
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Our December meeting featured an excellent presentation on NASA Launch Weather Forecasting by local NASA Solar System Ambassador, Tony Rice. Astronomers obviously need clear night skies to get anything done and spend a lot of time studying weather forecasts of frontal boundaries, cloud cover, winds aloft and airmass moisture. To send a space mission on its way, NASA does all that and much more. Tony walked us through other weather factors that govern a launch such as temperature, lightening risk and where winds will carry debris and…
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The clouds couldn’t beat human curiousity for the October RACOBS. The night started with more than 50% cloud cover but slowly improved. By 9pm, plenty of objects were available for observing. Among the approximately 20 attendees were members old and new, guests who have never peered through a telescope and a local Cub Scout Troop. Attendance started to dwindle by 11p and the observing session came to a close soon after. Thanks to all club members who graciously provided…
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The Raleigh Astronomy Club participated in the ASTC (Association of Science and Technology Centers) 2014 Annual Conference this past weekend. This in an international conference and this year it was hosted by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. The conference was held at the Raleigh Convention Center and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. RAC was enlisted to provide help for both the welcome party and the museum open house day. Members provided both daytime (solar)…
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The October Imaging Group Meeting at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences featured Guylain Rochon speaking on his excellent program for astrophotography, BackyardEOS. Speaking to us from his basement in Canada, Guylain showed the finer features of using the program and explained some of the design decisions. He also discussed some of the coming features of the program. Everyone in attendance felt like they learned many new things about using the program capture great images. If you were not…
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Speaker: Stephen van Vuuren Our October meeting featured Stephen van Vuuren describing his fascinating multi-year project to produce a science documentary for IMAX and other giant screen theaters titled In Saturn’s Rings. This amazing film is made entirely with real imagery from the Cassini Saturn probe, Hubble Space Telescope and other space missions. In Saturn’s Rings provides stunning images of the Earth, Moon, Milky Way and an eye-popping fly-through of Saturn’s system – all in 6K resolution.
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Although some clouds threatened the viewing, North Carolina observers were able to see the lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of Wednesday, October 8. Because the eclipse would be occurring as the moon is setting in our location, you needed a very low western horizon to see totality. Raleigh Astronomy Club members and many others were able to get some very good images of the event. Click the read more link for even more views!
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