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.
Mark Lang filled in as secretary since Ann Murphy was on vacation this week. He took the meeting minutes. Business meeting: The business meeting opened approximately 7 pm with elections the first item on the agenda. It was announced we now had a full slate of candidates. Nominees for co-chair were Chris Cole, Mike Mantini, and Phyllis Lang. Steve Izzo was nominated for treasurer, and Matt Lochansky was nominated for secretary. All nominees had been seconded via the email list. Initially, there was…
It was a very warm day on Sunday, June 21st, but the views were great! Several members brought white light and H-alpha solar scopes and set up on the bicentennial plaza outside the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh. The Sun provided a great show with two large sun spots and a really large prominence which just improved over the course of the observing session. About 100 folks stopped by on their way to the presentations at the…
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,…
Volunteers are needed for the listed events. Please consider volunteering and bringing your scopes. The link to volunteer is: https://raleighastroinfo.wufoo.com/forms/rac-events-registration-form/
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…
Apr 18th (Sat), Howell Woodstock Successfully held despite marginal weather. Thanks to the volunteers. Apr 21st (Tues), New School Montessori in Holly Springs Quick recap on how it went and thanks. Apr 24th (Fri), SWSP Prairie Ridge and Annie Wilkerson Park Last call for volunteers. Doug and Matt answered questions. There was a weather call at 12pm on Friday. Apr 25th (Sat), GS Camp Mary Atkinson Have 1 volunteer, could use 1 more. This was rained out for Saturday Apr…
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.
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…
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.
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.
