RAC

For the May indoor meeting, RAC member Chris Cole had a very interesting presentation on the different planetary filters and their uses.  The presentation used images (from both Chris’ personal collection and NASA) to compare the effects of various filters including colored wratten, UV, and IR filters.  He also discussed what types of objects and conditions benefited from using these filters. Chris Cole had many of the filters he talked about and he demonstrated them to the audience. There were…

On Saturday, April 26, several astronomers from RAC and CHAOS traveled down to Camp Durant near Carthage, NC to support the Cub-aroo event for the Boy Scouts of America. The event including day and night time observing, as well as lectures. There were five astronomers for solar observing and lecturing, and three astronomers for night time observing. Despite being plagued with clouds, some good views of the Mars and Jupiter.

The regular indoor meeting on April 10 featured a great presentation from Matthew Goodson from the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Physics and Astronomy speaking on the formation of the Solar System. Matthew talked about the process for forming the solar system and about some of the work they are doing on this at UNC-Chapel Hill.

   The Raleigh Astronomy Club was to host 3 venues for the 2014 Statewide Star Party as part of the NC Science Festival.  Due to poor weather, events planned for Friday night were postponed to either Saturday night or later in the year.

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…

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…

Recently there was a bright supernova in the galaxy M82. Several members got some really good images of it before it faded.

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!