RAC News

With the arrival of fall weather and clearer skies, RAC has been busy with a number of public outreach events in recent weeks with more to come. Public Stargaze: Annie Wilkerson Nature Preserve On Saturday, Oct 4th, RAC held a public observing session at the Annie Wilkerson Nature Preserve in North Raleigh. Skies were clear and about 50 guests showed up for an evening of mostly Moon viewing; but also Mars, Albireo, the M31 Andromeda galaxy and a number of Messier open…

We know a lot of you are curious about tomorrow’s early morning Lunar Eclipse. RAC will not hold a public event to view the eclipse as it occurs too early for the general public to be involved. However, this event does not require a telescope and is visible to the naked eye so we encourage everyone to try ad view this event on their own. On the morning of the 8th look to the West, the timing for the Lunar…

On Monday, 9/8, sunspot AR2158 got a bit unruly and erupted in not one, but two solar flares directed toward Earth. The first flare was a moderately powerful M4.6 class solar flare. But AR2158 was just getting “warmed up”, so to speak, and let rip with a much more powerful X1.6 class solar flare on Wednesday. These flares stream off a tremendous amount of hot gas and charged particles that are called a coronal mass ejection (CME). Images of this flare and the…

Despite some cloudy skies, the NC Museum of Art, RAC and the Morehead Planetarium held a stargazing event, Friday August 15th, on the museum’s park grounds. Over 250 people attended and patiently awaited breaks in cloud cover to tour the night sky.

Club member Mike Keefe gave a great talk on smartphone and tablet apps that can help you with your observing.  The audience had plenty of questions and feedback based upon their own experiences with these apps. About 20 apps were covered spanning the following areas: planetarium/charts, planning tools, general info tools and weather. Most of the apps are free or inexpensive.  Mike gave an overview of each app, cost, supported operating system and features. This meeting was streamed live and…

On Thursday night, July 24, RAC participated in the NC Museum of Natural Sciences Title 1 School Night program. Over a hundred guests interacted with our exhibits in the NRC lobby. Club members set up binocular and telescope stations along with hi-res images of the moon that visitors enjoyed viewing. Frank W, Doug L and Daniel K answered lots of questions and kids enjoyed getting glow sticks for viewing the moon.

Friday July 25 was the club’s monthly observing session (RACOBS).  Clouds dominated the skies most of the day on Friday but skies cleared just after sunset and stayed clear until well after 2:30 AM when the last of the observers packed up for the night.  We had approximately 12 to 15 members in attendance and 20 or so guests including cub scouts from several different local packs.  It was great to see kids get excited about astronomy.

For our July imaging meeting, there was considerable interest in the new Quark h-alpha solar filter by Daystar and it’s possibilities, not just for solar imaging, but for visual observing as well. The discussion began with Phyllis Lang showing her new Quark Daystar h-alpha filter and explaining it’s specifications and performance.  Input was given by others in attendance with how it would be comparable to other brands of expensive h-alpha solar scopes on the market today. Next, images by our…

The presentation for the July meeting was an overview of Exoplanets given by club member Brian Reasor. The slide-talk and video pulled together Exoplanet topics such as how many are known to exist (1700+) and where they are located (mostly within 500 light years of our sun).

Several Raleigh Astronomy Club members supported the International Sun-Day events at the North of Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. At the start of the event (12 noon) the weather was not at all cooperative with almost 100% cloud cover.  However holes in the clouds began to appear by 2pm and by 3pm we started to get some solar observing in.  The sun was somewhat quite today without a lot of activity / sun spots.  By around 3:30 we were able…

For the May indoor meeting, RAC member Chris Cole had a very interesting presentation on the different planetary filters and their uses.  The presentation used images (from both Chris’ personal collection and NASA) to compare the effects of various filters including colored wratten, UV, and IR filters.  He also discussed what types of objects and conditions benefited from using these filters. Chris Cole had many of the filters he talked about and he demonstrated them to the audience. There were…

On Saturday, April 26, several astronomers from RAC and CHAOS traveled down to Camp Durant near Carthage, NC to support the Cub-aroo event for the Boy Scouts of America. The event including day and night time observing, as well as lectures. There were five astronomers for solar observing and lecturing, and three astronomers for night time observing. Despite being plagued with clouds, some good views of the Mars and Jupiter.