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.
On Friday, April 26, RAC astronomers presented an observing session as part of an astronomical program for Girl Scouts at Camp Mary Atkinson, located outside Clayton NC. We had about 45 girls from all over eastern North Carolina and 4 volunteer astronomers, Frederic Fogg, Michael Mantini, John Nigro, and Clay Coor. The girls divided into 2 shifts of about 22 girls each, and each shift of girls spent about an hour at the telescopes.
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April in the Carolinas can bring storms and this month’s observing session was a casualty of one of these events. Strong storms moved through the area on Friday evening forcing cancellation of the session for the safety of our members and guests, as well as cancellation of the indoor informal meeting.
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.
Public Events – Looking for volunteers for these events. Please contact the coordinators or the yahoo list to volunteer.
Michel Tournay is always a good presenter and has presented to the club before. He travels to many exotic places capturing eclipses. In addition to capturing the eclipse, he will also capture the interesting aspects of the place. This presentation was no exception.
Attended: Ann Murphy, Ian Hewitt, Chris Cole, Mike Keefe, Chuck Jaynes Fourth Quarter 2013 Officer’s Meeting December 11th, 2013
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…
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!
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…
