General Meeting for October 12^th 2018.

Our guest speaker will be Paul Delaney. Paul has been a guest of the club several times and his talks are always informative and educational. This time around, Paul will be speaking about variable stars and binary star systems.

Stars have social lives too!

Stellar evolution has generated (almost) all the elements in the universe with the notable exceptions of hydrogen and helium.  This process has allowed for planet formation and the existence of life.  Yet despite their pivotal place in the grand scheme of the universe, we talk very little about stars let alone their habit of forming in multiple associations and clusters. This talk will focus on the 101 of star formation and reveal the social habits of stars especially in regards binary star systems.

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The latest issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!

In this issue you’ll find…

• • The Sky for October 2018
  • HAA Astrophysics Group Report
  • DARK Current… the Devil in the Details
  • Upcoming Events
  • Plus More

Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.

Photo credit: NGC 7380, the Pacman Nebula, by Peter Wolsley

Join us this September 14^th 2018 at 7:30pm – Admission is free and everyone is welcome!

Since the earliest days of humanity, mankind has been fascinated with the heavens above. For millions of years, the only tool available for our species to view the universe was built into our body – the most complex and incredible optical tool known to man – the human eye. Since the dawn of the telescope 400 years ago, astronomy has been dominated by ever larger optics. Binoculars, refractors, dobsonians, mountaintop observatories and orbiting space telescopes. Yet we often forget there’s an entire universe waiting to be seen at any moment, simply by looking up. Philosophers, scientists, religious leaders and mythologists discovered countless sights in the cosmos and collected thousands of years of scientific knowledge, tradition and mythology with nothing more than the naked eye. From dust sized particles whizzing through the atmosphere to galaxies millions of light years away, join Kevin on a journey across the cosmos undertaken with nothing more than your own two eyes.

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The latest issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!

In this issue you’ll find…

• The Sky For September 2018
• CANON and NIKON… taking a walk on the DARK side…
• Eye Candy
• Upcoming Events
• NASA’s Space Place

Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.

Photo credit: Merak, M108 and M97, by Bob Christmas.

Join Us – All Welcome for the Annual Perseid Meteor Shower Event this Saturday, August 11, 2017

Free Admission

Watch the Perseids meteor shower with the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers at the Binbrook Conservation Area from 8 to 11 p.m. on Saturday August 11. Admission is free so bring the whole family for a fun evening under the stars!

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The latest issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!

In this issue you’ll find…

• HAA 25th Anniversary Celebration
• The Sky for Summer 2018
• Benefit of Fan Cooling your DSLR for Astrophotography
• M22, Saturn and Two Moons
• Upcoming Events
• Eye Candy

Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.

Photo credit: Omega Centauri by Leslie Webb

Join us this June 8^th 2018 at 7:30pm – Admission is free and everyone is welcome!

PixInsight, has become a popular image processing software package in recent years, especially for deep-sky astrophotography. Ron Brecher has used PixInsight for all of his deep sky processing since 2009. In this demonstration, Ron will show you how you can reveal the hidden treasures in your deep-sky images with just a few processing steps: crop bad edges, correct gradients, balance the colour, supress the noise, “stretch” the histogram and adjust colour, brightness and contrast. He will also take a few side trips to talk about using masks, deconvolution and sharpening, and managing noise in your images.

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Join us this May 11^th 2018 at 7:30pm – Admission is free and everyone is welcome!

This talk is for people who are just getting into astrophotography. It will cover various equipment setups, camera sensors and settings and the purpose of lights, darks and flats. The talk will also cover how to choose targets that match your capabilities and your equipment. This is not a talk about image processing however I will touch briefly on image stacking. Please note that although astrophotography can be accomplished with video, Digital SLR or CMOS/CCD specialized cameras, this talk will only cover the use of a Digital SLR camera.

Astrophotography is a hobby within hobbies. To succeed, you need to have at least some experience with cameras and lenses, telescopes and mounts, image processing and a reasonable amount of knowledge regarding the night sky. Even if you can satisfy all of these prerequisites, your learning curve will still be very steep. Hopefully, this talk will help you get started on the path to becoming an Astrophotographer.

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Join us for a BBQ and Star Party to celebrate the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers 25th Anniversary. After dinner there will be a brief Night Sky Tour followed by an evening of star gazing. So come prepared!

For full details and to buy your tickets online…

Photo credit: Don Pullen

The latest issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!

In this issue you’ll find…

• H.A.A. 25th Anniversary Celebration
• H.A.A. Astrophysics Group Report
• The Sky This Month for May 2018
• Noise Analysis of Nikon D5300 DSLR Camera
• Nikon D5300 ISO Invariance Testing
• Eye Candy

Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.

Photo credit: Milky Way, Saturn and Mars, by Susan MacLachlan