Fourth Quarter 2013 Officer’s Meeting
Attended: Ann Murphy, Ian Hewitt, Chris Cole, Mike Keefe, Chuck Jaynes Fourth Quarter 2013 Officer’s Meeting December 11th, 2013
February Club Social
The regular indoor meeting in February was originally designed to be a club social event. However, winter weather had other plans and the original meeting was cancelled and rescheduled to Thursday, February 20. Around 15 members and guests were present to enjoyment the refreshments and good conversations. The discussions varied from topics like the supernova in M82, cameras and dynamic ranges, and one of the founding members of the NCSU Astronomy club talked about their plans. A good time was…
Feb 2014 Equipment Clinic
In 2014, the Raleigh Astronomy Club decided to change the format of their eductional program from a single Telescope Tune Up Clinic to more specialized sessions focusing not just on telescops but rather Learning Astronomy. Our new offerings include 3 classes in a classroom setting and an Equipment Clinic held in an outdoor setting. You can find more information about these various sessions on our Learning Astronomy page. We held our first Equipment Clinic on Feb 8th at the…
January 2014 RACOBS
Janaury’s RACOBs on Friday the 31st started out with some rather pesky high clouds obscuring most of the sky. However by 8pm the skies started to clear up and stayed mostly clear the rest of the night. We had about 20 Raleigh Astronomy Club members in attendance and several guests. One of the most sought after targets of the evening was the type 1a supernova SN2014J in the Cigar Galaxy (also known as M82 or NGC 3034). It is estimated…
Supernova in M82
Recently there was a bright supernova in the galaxy M82. Several members got some really good images of it before it faded.
Astronomy Days 2014!!
The Raleigh Astronomy Club co-hosted it’s annual Astronomy Days event with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, January 25 and Sunday January 25, 2014. Over 10,000 guests attended the event and enjoyed the exhibits, activities, presentations, and workshops. This year featured an expanded presentation format with over 30 different topics so there was something for every astronomical of space interest!
Special Indoor Meeting – Russian Space Program
There was a special indoor meeting for the Raleigh Astronomy Club on Friday, January 24,2014. We were fortunate to have Russian Space Policy expert Yuri Karash on the state of the Russian space program. As a former cosmonaut trainee and journalist, he was able to provide a fascinating look at the space program and provide context around public attitudes toward space inside Russia. He is now working with on a super realistic space game/experience. For more details on the Space…
Treasurer’s Report: Dec 31 2013
Report Period: 1 Oct 2013 – 31 Dec 2013 Income & Expenses INCOME Membership Dues 710.00 Interest 1.30 Total $711.30 EXPENSES PayPal Transaction Fees (PayPal) -21.72 Post Office Box Yearly Fee (U.S. Post Office) -124.00 Expense Reimbursement (Club Apparel Orders) 306.93 Total $161.21 Account Balances Business Checking 2,525.86 ($0.00 uncleared) PayPal 236.91 Regular Savings 10,314.29 ($470.65 Renee Ward Memorial Fund) Special Purpose 140.53 Total $13,217.59 Memberships Individual Memberships 112 Family Memberships 57 Total Memberships 169 New Memberships 68 Renewed Memberships…
January 2014 Business Meeting
1) Constitutional Vote The constitution was voted in the following manners – Online, via mail, and at the meeting. People could only vote in one manner. The club did get a quorum. There were only 65 paid members at the time of the January meeting, thus only 43 were necessary to pass. The tally was:
January 2014 Meeting: Modeling the Cosmos and other Scientific Analogies, Part 2 by Ron Monti
Our very own club member, Ron Monti, presented this topic. This is a continuation of the topic he presented in July of 2013. He was kind enough to briefly go over the first part for those of us that missed it. After this brief overview, he dove into the new material.
December 2013 Business Meeting
Imaging Meeting Location vote There was not enough for a quorum. At the in meeting the vote was
Third Quarter Officer Meeting – 2013
Date: August 5th, 2013 Attended: Ann Murphy, Ian Hewitt, Chris Cole, Chuck Jaynes 1) Constitution Update –All
December 2013 Meeting: An Overview of Galaxies, Patrick Treuthardt, Ph.D.
Dr. Patrick Treuthardt, Ph.D. Assistant Director, NRC Astronomy Laboratory was the presenter in the December meeting. His talk was divided into three sections. The first he gave an overview of the formation and evolution of galaxies. The second section, he showed examples of different galaxy formation –both the expected and the unexpected. Lastly, he discussed some of the recent research in the field. All during the talk, he answered questions that came up.
North Cary Park – Public Observing Session
On Saturday November 9th the Raleigh Astronomy Club hosted a public observing session at North Cary Park. Despite some thick cloud cover the club proceeded with the event by delaying the start time one hour. The weather forecasts had estimated the clouds to clear by 9pm but is was closer to 9:45pm until there was a substantial enough amount of clearing, though there were pockets of clearing by 8pm.
Partial Eclipse of the Sun
The morning of Sunday November 3rd, 2013 saw a rare hybrid solar eclipse. The type of eclipses has features of both an annual and total solar eclipse. Unfortunately, here in North Carolina, the eclipse was already well underway at sunrise and only showed as a partial eclipse. Although the morning dawned quite cool, several groups went to locations in North Raleigh and Cary to view the event. The weather was very clear and with a low horizon, it was a…
