RAC

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.

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.

Although it was warm and muggy and sky conditions not optimal, the July outdoor observing session offered a chance for some summer season observing for about a dozen RAC members. Some members even took advantage of the conditions to get some imaging time, including this spectacular photograph of the Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules by Steve Christensen (Image Used With Permission).

Speaker:  Tony Rice, Solar System Ambassador This month’s speaker was Tony Rice, one of our local NASA Solar System Ambassadors.  His topic was Planetary Atmospheres.  Tony began by giving the club members a quiz he normally gives to teachers and broadcast meteorologists.  It had 4 questions which our group were able to answer correctly, but the area teachers and TV broadcasters (including the Daily Show with Jon Stewart) had trouble answering.

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…

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

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…