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NEWS (click on the pictures for more information): April 13, 2012 April meeting roundup Bob Christmas opened the meeting with his usual remarks and announcements of upcoming events. Our guest speakers for this evening were Brian Dernesch and Brady Johnson, the owners of KW Telescope. Brian opened with news that they will be moving to a new location in the near future. Then he covered some interesting new astro-toys including compact quality binoculars, some eyepieces and a new tracking mount for astro-photography. Next Brady presented his talk about using line (narrow-band) filters to achieve amazing astro-photos from urban backyards. After the break and door prize draws, our observing director, John Gauvreau, fortunately didn't have any technical problems this month and was able to successfully present the Sky This Month. We also had a silent auction for an excellent, hand-made telescope. March 9, 2012 March meeting roundup Meeting opened with a few brief remarks by HAA Chair, Bob Christmas. Next Mike Spicer was back in fine form as he talked about attempting the Messier Marathon. He presented an interesting perspective, showing that it could be attempted mostly with just binoculars and covering most of the objects within the first hour or 2 after sunset and an hour or so before sunrise while others struggle and freeze using scopes all night long. After a break and some door prize draws, we ran into to technical difficulties setting up for the Sky This Month. However undeterred, our observing director John Gauvreau managed to effectively entertain the group with a new toy he received. A small tube with metal caps on each end, when held by hands, completes a circuit resulting in amusing lights and sounds. Reminiscent of an old cola commercial, John eventually had a room of about 70 amateur astronomers holding hands in a large circle as we all completed the circuit and were rewarded with resultant visual and audible cues. Despite efforts by Joe, Bob and others, we were unable to get the projection system working, so John continued to present his Sky This Month, albeit without the expected visual aids, and in the spirit of a true entertainer covered the main highlights both informatively and in an enjoyable fashion. Kudos to John for continuing under these trying conditions and doing so brilliantly. The meeting was then adjourned as some of us retired to a local watering hole for more laughs and social discourse. February 10, 2012 February meeting roundup Meeting opened with a few brief remarks by HAA Chair, Bob Christmas. Next we had a fascinating presentation about Maya history and cosmology from Ian McGregor of the Royal Ontario Museum. A long lasting culture, which still endures, had a straight-forward counting system but challenging written language to translate. It wasn't until the last 20-30 years that reliable translations have been possible. With current info, and that there is only 1 single incomplete and damaged reference to the end of the 13th Baktun - it is now clear that there was NO prophecy of an Armageddon in 2012. After a break and a few more announcements, Joe McArdle indicated that a number of the HAA members like to venture out to photograph full moons as they rise from various locations. He invited others to participate and provided a list of full moon dates with rise times. Kevin Salwach provided a report on astronomically-themed historical events that occurred on this date. January 13, 2012 January meeting roundup HAA Chair Bob Christmas welcomed everyone and provided some opening remarks. Our observing director, John Gauvreau highlighted that today's date was the anniversary of Galileo detecting all 4 Galilean moons in 1610. John then went on provide an excellent snapshot of seasonally relevent constellations and objects that we can tackle. During the evening, we also had Rob Roy in to hold a silent auction on many astronomy-related books. December 9, 2011 December meeting roundup Here's what you missed at the December meeting: HAA Chair Bob Christmas welcomed everyone and provided some opening remarks. EH Editor Ann Tekatch, provided an update on the Telescope Making Group and invited interested members to visit a meeting to see how it's done. Club secretary Jim Wamsley thanked the membership for their continued good support of the local food banks. He also notified us that HAA member Les Webb has generously donated an excellent pair of Pentax 10x50 binoculars for the scope loaner program. Our guest speaker, John Crowdis, provided a fascinating talk about how ancient understanding of astronomy influenced early religions. HAA Observing Director, John Gauvreau detailed upcoming celestial events, including the Geminids and a great series of Jovian moon transits, then told us about several great clusters to observe this time of year, including the double cluster in Perseus, the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the Alpha Persei Association. November 11, 2011 November meeting roundup HAA Chair, Bob Christmas, gave the opening remarks for the evening, including: an announcement of the availability of the HAA's 2012 Celestial Events Calendar a reminder of our Telescope Clinic coming up on Friday, November 25th at the Spectator Auditorium a notice that the telescope making workshops are underway, having kicked off this past Monday Our guest speaker, Charles Baetsen, discussed the benefits of an "Ultra-Light Travel Telescope" and presented some great information on how you can build one of your own. More details on Charles' scope can be found in the October 2011 issue of Event Horizon and drawings are available under the "Tools" page. Kevin Salwach presented another installment of "Today In Astronomy" HAA Observing Director, John Gauvreau told us about the highlights of "The Sky for November 2011", including some great tips on observing the ever-popular M31 (and, as an added bonus, his tale of the launch of STS-1) Finder charts for comet Garradd (C/2009 P1) can be found online at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/128836743.html October 15, 2011 October meeting roundup HAA Chair John Gauvreau gave the HAA's annual Chair's Report for the past year, and thanked all members of the outgoing HAA Council. Don Pullen gave the annual Treasurer's Report, and presented a preview of HAA's 2012 Calendar. Jim Wamsley gave his Secretary's Report, informing the audience that more than 300 pounds of food was collected over the past year for local Food Banks, and gave more details about the HAA's Loaner Scope Program. The HAA's new governing council for the next year was affirmed. Mike Jefferson informed the HAA that the LOFAR II radio antenna has been retired, after some 20 million observations. Kevin Salwach gave a talk about various astronomy and space-related events that happened on October 14th in history. Tim Philp talked about Observatories, ancient, modern and future, and gave some interesting insight about some of them. Steve Germann talked about the sky for October. September 10, 2011 September meeting roundup The main speaker of the evening, Dr. Laura Parker of McMaster University, gave a very interesting talk about Dark Matter and Gravitational Lensing. Laura spoke about the types of gravitational lensing, showed some cool examples of gravitational lensing in deep-sky images, and explained how gravitational lensing can be utilized to detect "dark matter" in and around galaxies and galaxy clusters. Laura's talk was so captivating, it elicited numerous questions from our audience! HAA Chair John Gauvreau talked about the sky for for September 2011. HAA Secretary Jim Wamsley brought in several meteorites to show us. June 11, 2011 June meeting roundup The HAA had its astronomy trivia night. A good time was had by all! Our observing director, Steve Germann, talked about the sky for for Summer 2011. May 16, 2011 May meeting roundup Tim Philp talked about the 13 greatest discoveries in astronomy, from the motion of the planets as seen from Earth, to the accelerating universe. HAA member Kevin Salwach gave a brief presentation about what astronomy and space related events took place on this day of the meeting, May 13th. Our observing director, Steve Germann, talked about the sky for May 2011. April 9, 2011 April meeting roundup The HAA's own Don Pullen talked about the various types of telescopes, eyepieces and telescope mounts available on the market to amateur astronomers and gave some tips to astronomy newcomers on trying out new equipment (and what NOT to buy!). Kevin Salwach talked briefly about various astronomy and space-related events that happened on April 8th, 9th and 10th in history. Our observing director, Steve Germann, talked about the sky for April 2011. March 12, 2011 March meeting roundup The main speaker of the evening, Robert Godwin, founder of Apogee Books, gave a very interesting talk about the history of astronomy, science, science fiction, and space flight. Our observing director, Steve Germann, talked about the sky for March 2011. February 12, 2011 February meeting roundup The main speaker of the evening, Dr. Ralph Chou, Associate Professor of Optometry at the University of Waterloo, gave an fascinating and informative talk on optometry, the optics of the human eye, and what happens to our eyes as we age. Given his background in both astronomy and optometry, his presentation was given from the unique perspective of astronomical observing, and particularly, the limitations of what older amateur astronomers can see through the telescope eyepiece. Our observing director, Steve Germann, talked about the sky for February 2011. January 16, 2011 January meeting roundup The main speaker of the evening, Dan Falk, a science journalist who has written for the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Walrus, the Boston Globe, the Independent (U.K.), COSMOS, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Sky News, Nature, New Scientist, and Cottage Life and many other newspapers and magazines, gave a fascinating talk about the concept of Time, appropriately entitled "In Search of Time". He outlined the history of human perceptions of time, from the Old Stone Age to the modern age of String Theory and multiple universes. Steve Germann talked about the sky for January 2011. | Old News | | Webmaster |