RAC

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.

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!

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).