We had a great indoor session this past Friday (October 14, 2011). Dr. Fabian Heitsch of UNC’s Department of Physics and Astronomy gave a fascinating presentation on the Cosmic Distance Ladder starting from the use of parallax to calculate distances within our own solar system, the use of cepheid variable stars and then up to type 1A supernovae.
On Sept. 24th, 2011, my eldest son and I joined up with other amateur astronomers from the Raleigh Astronomy Club (RAC) and the Chapel Hill Astronomical Observing Society (CHAOS) at Staunton River State Park in Virginia (http://dcr.state.va.us/state_parks/sta.shtml).
RAC Treasurer’s Report dated 10/10/2011 Regular checking account activity since 8/10/2011 report: $25.00 refunded to a member for duplicate dues payment. $98.90 to Spectrum Screen Printing – 1st part of payment on clothing order. Four deposits totaling $402.31 were made for membership dues and clothing orders. $2,108.60——Regular checking account balance. $10.00——Special Purpose checking account balance. $10,301.82——Savings account balance. $12,421.28——Total balance all funds on hand.
May 27, 2011 The RACOBS meeting was clouded out. Since this was the Memorial Day weekend, the Museum was operating with a reduced staff so the indoor meeting was cancelled also. A few members met a restaurant in Cameron Village in place of a meeting. June 10, 2011 Regular meeting – Club member Mike Malaska gave a talk entitled “Titan’s Earth-like Landscape.” June 24, 2011 RACOBS – Clouds forced an indoor meeting at the Museum. Jim DellaPenna gave the group…
RAC Treasurer Report dated 8/10/2011 Regular checking account activitysince 6/9/2011 report: $139.97 to Doug Lively for Mark Lang’s gifts for long service. $54.24 to Ian Hewitt for Messier awards. $100.00 to Wachovia for safe deposit box rental. $41.09 to Doug lively for July 8th speaker dinner. One deposit of $72.45 was made for membership dues. $1,830.19———-Regular checking account balance. $10.00———-Special Purpose checking account balance. $10,301.82———-Savings account balance. $12,142.01———-Total balance all funds on hand.
Saturday, June 4th: My 10 PM car count at our Jordan Lake observing site was 11, so at 1-1/2 persons per car we had around 16 or so observers Saturday night.
On Friday evening, June 3rd, 2011, the Raleigh Astronomy Club (RAC) participated in the North Carolina Natural Science Museum’s First Friday event by setting telescopes outside the museum for the public to view through. The theme for this First Friday event was all about Mars from highlighting a full scale model of the Mars Science Lab Rover to a screening of the 1954 film “Devil Girl from Mars.”
RAC Treasurer’s Report dated 6/9/2011 Regular checking account activity since 5/11/2011 report: $17.14 to Ian Hewitt for Gayle Riggsbee speaker dinner. $590.00 to Astronomical League for annual club dues. $21.76 to Ian Hewitt for Kevin Hussey speaker dinner. Three deposits totaling $656.27 were made for membership dues. $2,787.25———-Regular checking account balance. $10.00———-Special Purpose checking account balance. $10,098.21———-Savings account balance. $13,098.21———-Total balance all funds on hand.
Our speaker tonight was Tony Rice who is a NASA Ambassador. Tony’s topic was “Visions and Voyages for Planetary Science 2013-2022.” In the title, Tony was talking about NASA’s decadal survey & the plan for the next 10 years. Tony pointed out that NASA depends on the science community to identify and prioritize projects. The classes of missions are Discovery missions with a budget of $500 million per project, New Frontiers with a budget of $1 billion per project, and…
RAC Treasurer’s Report by Jim DellaPenna Dated 3/11/2011 Regular checking account activity since last report dated 3/9/2011: $44.27 to Doug Lively for Michel Tournay speaker dinners. $116.01 to Jerry Watson for Gayle Riggsbee speaker lodging. $100.00 to Gayle Riggsbee for speaker travel miles reimbursement. $145.05 to Mike Keefe for 1.5 month rent + lock for new club storage unit. $1,044.00 to Uncle Bob’s Storage for 1-year rent including extra month free. Two deposits totaling $515.00 were made for membership dues.…
April 22, 2011 RACOBS. For the second month in a row, cloudy weather prevented our outdoor observing session. In addition, since this was Good Friday which is a state holiday, the Museum was closed preventing an indoor meeting. About a dozen members met at a restaurant in Cameron Village instead.
Gayle Riggsbee from the Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Society was tonight’s speaker. His topic was “Building the 200 inch Hale Telescope.” Gayle began his talk with the topic of constructing large telescopes; especially those equatorially mounted using a split ring design. Today, large telescopes are computer controlled and mounted on altitude-azimuth type mounts. The Hale 200 inch is the most massive equatorially mounted telescope ever constructed. He showed some other examples of equatorially mounted split ring scopes. Gayle’s talk initially focused…
The March 25, 2011 RACOBS outdoor meeting was clouded out, so an indoor meeting was held at the Museum. Doug Lively presented a slide show about beginning astronomy tips to a small group of 13 people. Doug focused on concepts and ideas to help beginners get a good start in the hobby such as what you can see with the naked eye, what the constellations are, how to observe the sun, moon, and planets, and the types of telescopes in…
The night of Saturday April 2nd and the morning of April 3rd was the Raleigh Astronomy Club’s Messier Marathon at Howell Woods. It went very well. Approximately 11 people attended for observing or to do the marathon.
Regular meeting Mar. 11, 2011. Tonight’s meeting was titled “Photographing Auroras” by Michel Tournay. Michel is from the James Bay, Quebec, Canada. It was a pleasure to listen to his French-Canadian accent during the talk. Initially Michel described the processes that are responsible for creating aurorae on Earth – the solar wind and coronal mass ejections interacting with the Earth’s magnetic field. He showed an interesting image of the mirror image aurorae that happen at the same time in the…
