The December 2015 meeting of the Raleigh Astronomy Club featured Dr. Nicholas Law, a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UNC Chapel Hill. Dr. Law gave an excellent talk on a state of the art telescope called Evryscope. This telescope will look at larger areas of the the night sky and be invaluable for for Exoplanet research.
Treasurer’s report 4 new members this month Financials were presented to the club. Telescope Loaner Program Many thanks to John Sadler for his efforts to go through the telescope loaner pool, clean out the storage shed, and revitalize the program. The blue Coulter 10.1″ dob is being offered up for sale via a silent auction. Email John if you would like to bid on the telescope. He will tell you if you are the high bidder or not. One bid…
<strong>Telescope Loaner Program</strong> Telescope loaner program continues to be updated. John S. is weeding through good scopes, those in disrepair, and those which might be better used outside the loaner program. He is also putting together “kits” to make the scopes more complete and easier to loan out. The 17″ dob (which was donated to the club a long time ago) was sold to one of Fred’s friends, Michael Searle. This was a difficult decision, but MIchael built a similar…
August 27, 2015 28 members and guests attended the meeting Lecture: Dr. Blondin, professor of physics at NC State, spoke about modeling the gas disk around X-Ray binaries The talk was recorded and available on YouTube.
The October meeting featured a special presentation by RAC member and NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador Ian Hewitt. Ian has been following the progress of the New Horizons mission to Pluto & Charon for several years. He shared some of the science results from the mission so far, some preceding and others following the close flyby of Pluto and Charon on July 14, 2015. Ian recorded the talk and it is available on the RAC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T7UlVB6-Eo
The Fall observing season is here and that means good weather for getting out under the stars. For the early fall sessions, which usually have mild weather and decent conditions, the club was able to observe in August and September 2015, but was clouded out in October. However, two out of three was not bad and members got in some eagerly awaited time under the stars.
The September indoor RAC meeting was held in the Daily Planet Theater and member Dr. Steven Christensen presented on multiverses. This topic can be very hard to grasp for non-physicists, but as usual, Dr. Christensen did a great overview of the background and current theories of this very heady topic, but in a very accessible way so that everyone could understand it. However, even folks familiar with the topic learned something during this presentation. Thanks again to Steve for taking…
The Raleigh Astronomy Club had a member picnic/social gathering on a great September Saturday. Co-chair Chris Cole coordinated/hosted a great event on a strawberry farm featuring barbecue (pork and chicken) with homemade sauces and homemade strawberry ice cream. A lot of members brought side dishes to share sot there was ample good food to go around. All the members and their families that were able to attend had a great afternoon talking and eating in really nice weather. Congratulations to…
The August 2015 meeting of the Raleigh Astronomy Club featured Dr. John Blondin of the North Carolina State Department of Astronomy and Physics presenting on X-Ray Binary Star systems This is a very active area of research in astronomy and a number of hist students are doing work in this area. Dr Blondin is a great presenter and provided an excellent overview of the current understanding in this field. A recording of the meeting is available on the Raleigh Astronomy…
The Raleigh Astronomy Club and Morehead planetarium partnered with North Carolina Museum of Art for the 2015 Stargazing in the Museum Park member event. In addition to beverages supplied by local breweries, the crowd of over 300 enjoyed clear cool skies and views of the International Space Station (ISS), M13, the Moon, and Saturn. Saturn was definitely the crowd favorite with multiple scopes providing views of the ringed planet in white light and through colored filters (like orange to enhace…
The Perseid metor shower is one of the better showers of the year. This year’s event was widely anticipated because the Moon did not interfere with the veiwing. Here in Raleigh, we were doubly luck as some cooler drier weather also happened to settle into the area making conditions very good indeed. Many members and public got some gret views due to a public observing session by Morehead Planetarium, a RAC impromptu observing session, and the regulary scheduled RACOBS
The RAC July Indoor meeting featured a presentation by Dr. Barbara Becker on her resaerch into the life and accomplishments of British amateur astronomers William and Margaret Huggins in the 19th century work. In a time when amateurs did a great deal of the astronomical work, this husband/wife team did pioneering work in the field of spectroscopy. Much of modern astronomy is rooted in spectral analysis of the light from stars, nebula, galaxies and many other objects and their contributions…
Several members of RAC (and a couple from CHAOS) joined Jim Pressley and Phyllis Lang at the NCSU Crafts Center Saturday for an informal eyepice cleaning clinic. Supplies and refreshments were provided for attendees who brought an eyepiece or two for cleaning.
July 23, 2015 About 30 members attended the meeting Lecture: Dr. Becker, a scientific historian, gave a wonderful talk on “Unraveling Starlight” which went through the life of William Huggins and his rise from an uneducated silk merchant to President of the Royal Society. The talk was recorded and available on YouTube.
Pluto has very much been on everyone’s mind this week with all the information from NASA’s New Horizons mission that has been released this week. Long time RAC member Mark Lang took advantage of the skies during the July RAC observing session to build his own very cool animation of Pluto taken from here in North Carolina. Please note, you need to click the image to see the animation.
