Thanks to our members Phil Roberts and Ken Wilson a request was made of Virginia Senator John Watkins to introduce a resolution in the Virginia General Assembly designating 2009 as the Year of Astronomy in Virginia. Senator Watkins kindly introduced the resolution this month.
This past Thursday we held a sky watch event hosted by the University of Richmond Society of Physics Students. The event was well attended by students and professors who all appeared to enjoy themselves. This sky watch was a bit of a different venue for our club. To my knowledge we have not often held sky watches at colleges or universities. It was an exciting opportunity for us and we had a lot of fun with it.
My sincere thanks to those who brought telescopes and their expertise to the event, specifically, John Barnett, Jack Fox, Jeff Pike, John Raymond, Tim Streagle, Jerry Vaughn and Jerry Zaun. I understand that a few folks also tried to find the location, but were unable to do so. I thank everyone for taking time from their schedules to join us.
The evening started out a bit cool and eventually dropped into the mid-thirties - cold, but tolerable. The Society of Physics Students supplied some hot beverages to take the chill off.
It was a nice clear night and we provided views of the favorite objects that are visible this time of year. We had a variety of scopes including Dobs, refractors and, I think, one or more Maksutov-Cassegrains. I had the club's Stellacam video equipment coupled to my equatorial Newtonian and aimed at the Orion nebula for much of the time, which is a spectacular sight through the Stellacam, by the way. We had a great assortment of equipment and astronomers. Students of all disciplines came by to say hello and have a look and I think enjoyed the event. As always, the green pointing laser was an attention-getter.
At our last meeting, we heard about John B.’s 2009 observatory plan and received some great tips from Leslie on how to best answer questions from skywatch participants. Leslie did a great job presenting and led us in a few role play exercises. It was loads of fun and should come in handy at our public events which may become more numerous in this International Year of Astronomy. Thanks to Leslie and John for their presentations.
Leslie giving tips on how to answer astronomy questions from the public
The group
We also heard about John R.’s plans for an April 4 star party in Goochland. This event will be the 1st Virginia Solar-Lunar Convention and Imaging Conference. All plans are tentative for now, but it is expected to be a one day/night event focusing on four themes:
Solar Astronomy
Lunar Astronomy
Video Astronomy
Imaging in General
John advises that the cost will be minimal, food will available on-site and that he will have more info to follow. Some quick reminders:
The next general meeting will be February 10. Recall that meetings have been moved to the second Tuesday of each month due to the closing of the Science Museum on Mondays in 2009.
The next Science Museum Skywatch and LiveSky show are February 20.
The next RAS board meeting is scheduled for February 16.
Regards, Jim Browder Richmond Astronomical Society
Greetings Reader – I hope message this finds you well.
Next meeting:Our next meeting of the Richmond Astronomical Society will be on January 13 at 7:30 PM at the Science Museum of Virginia.We will be meeting in the East Terrace.If you are not familiar with this meeting space, the Museum’s security guard can direct you.
Leslie Bochenski, with the Science Museum, will be presenting on the International Year of Astronomy (IYA), 2009.This will be very topical since the IYA is now 11 days old and a number of activities to celebrate the year are gearing up.Please join us at the meeting if you can.A number of us will be gathering at the Arby’s across the street from the Science Museum for dinner before the meeting.Everyone is welcome.
More about IYA 2009:Lots of information about the International Year of Astronomy is appearing on various web sites.The main US site is at: http://astronomy2009.us/
365 Days of Astronomy: An audio podcast for each day of the year. A number of dedicated individuals are producing some very interesting podcasts for each day of the IYA.Definitely worth a listen.The fine people who produce AstronomyCast are doing a lot to support the 365 Days of Astronomy project and other IYA efforts.Both podcasts are great and those of us that regularly listen to the podcasts very much appreciate the time and effort that goes into their production.http://365daysofastronomy.org/
Comet Lulin:Some of our amateur astronomer friends have been attempting to view Comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin).Comet Lulin was discovered in 2007 at a Chinese observatory and has been predicted to reach a brightness of 5th magnitude in late February, which should make it an interesting sight through binoculars. It may even become visible with the naked eye in a dark sky.An article about Comet Lulin is on the Sky and Telescope web site.http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/35992534.html
Science of Museum Skywatch:Don’t forget about the Science Museum of Virginia’s skywatch held on the third Friday of each month.On this day, members of our society set up telescopes on the front lawn of the Science Museum to show the night sky to members of the public.Before the skywatch at 6:00 PM, the Museum also presents LiveSky in the Ethyl Planetarium.During the LiveSKy show, which is free by the way, a museum astronomer presents a view of the night sky using the planetarium’s digital projector and answers questions from the audience.
Regards,
Jim Browder Richmond Astronomical Society
www.richastro.org
