Old HAA News from January 2008 thru September 2008

September meeting roundup

• Greg Emery talked about the sky for September.
• Mike Spicer talked about using binoculars for astronomical observing.
• The main speaker of the evening, Dr. Mike Reid of McMaster University, talked about the upcoming International Year of Astronomy, 2009, and a potential role in it for the HAA.

Read more details of the September meeting here.

Peter McHugh's HAA Album Now Posted

Click here or on the picture to view new pictures of Jupiter and its four brightest moons, taken by HAA member Peter McHugh.

Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn's Picture appears on APOD!

HAA member Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn's picture of the summer Milky Way over Binbrook Conservation Area has reached even greater hieghts. Her image from July 5, 2008 has been selected for NASA's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day)!

Click here or on the thumbnail picture to see her Picture of the Day at the APOD web site.

Click here to see a larger version of this picture on Kerry's web site

Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn Makes SkyNews Picture Of The Week!

HAA member Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn has made it to the big leagues! Her Summer Milky Way image from Binbrook from July 5, 2008 has been selected as SkyNews Magazine's Picture of the Week!

Click here or on the thumbnail picture to see her Picture of the Week at the SkyNews web site.

Click here to see a larger version of this picture on Kerry's web site

June meeting roundup [Updated]

• Mike Spicer talked about the sky for Summer 2008.
  Click here to view the Summer 2008 Skywatch presentation [PDF 2.67 MB]
• Ray Badgerow gave a talk about the upcoming total solar eclipse in China on August 1 and his trip there to see it.
• Door prizes were given out, including a telescope.
  Click here to read a thank you message from Brian Chire, the winner of the telescope.
• The night's first main speaker, Ray Khan, showed a number of cool new astro-instruments now available for amateur astronomers.
• The second main speaker, Eric Briggs (pictured), talked about his various astronomical experiences, including supernova hunting and his recent trip to Cape Canaveral.
  

Read more details of the June meeting here.

May meeting roundup

• Mike Spicer talked about the sky for the month of May.
• Don Pullen talked about upcoming grazing lunar occultations, as well as Comets Boattini and McNaught.
• Mike Jefferson updated us on the performance of the LOFAR II radio telescope.
• The night's main speaker was HAA member and Past Chair Glenn Muller, who gave an interesting talk about the intertwined lives of several seventeenth century scientists and astronomers.

April meeting roundup

• Greg Emery talked about the sky for the month of April.
• Glenn Muller announced an HAA trip to the Cherry Springs Star Party in Pennsylvania at the end of May.
• Mike Jefferson talked about recent observations of the LOFAR radio telescope, including the detection of an M-Class Solar Flare on March 25, 2008. Click on the picture below to view full graph of this period. The flare is the spike indicated by the red arrow on the right hand side.
• John Gauvreau, the night's main speaker, talked about ten astronomical items we seldom think about, from Greek geometric calculation of the distance of the Sun, to the minimal separation of neighbour galaxies.

Read more details of the April meeting here.

LOFAR II Radio Antenna Update for March

Click here or on the picture to see a new plot of readings from the LOFAR II radio antenna. This is a plot of night time residual effects of a ~ B class 4.5 flare detected by the LOFAR II antenna on March 11, 2007. This one hit the other side of the Earth and worked its way around to us on the night side. The GOES spike occurred at about 05:00 and LOFAR II responded about an hour or so later.

Data reported by Mike Jefferson.

Also, Click here to go to the 3-day GOES X-Ray Flux Monitor Website (dynamically updates every 5 minutes).

March meeting roundup

• Bob Christmas showed his pictures of Comet Holmes and gave some insight into its Fall 2007 outburst. He also showed his pictures of the February 20, 2008 lunar eclipse.
• Mike Jefferson updated us on the performance of the LOFAR II radio telescope. He also paid tribute to the late Dr. Norman Green
• Don Pullen talked about an upcoming grazing lunar occultation.
• Club Chair Mike Spicer talked about the upcoming Messier Marathon.

Read more details of the March meeting here.

February meeting roundup

• Greg Emery talked about the sky for February, and astronomy freeware available online [See Interactive Astronomical Tools under TOOLS].
• Club Chair Mike Spicer talked about observing Saturn, as well as the upcoming Total Lunar Eclipse on February 20 - 21.
• Nicole DeBond talked about the Geology of the Moon.

Read more details of the February meeting here.

HAA LOFAR II Radio Antenna Data Reports Now Automated [Updated]

On Wednesday, January 24/08, Chris Kubiak very kindly offered to come to my house and help us with some minor problems with the LOFAR II radio-x-ray telescope. His very capable expertise put the instrument on a router with my workstation and streamlined the data collection capacity to send daily observations directly to Stanford University as well as to my worstation for archival purposes. We are now finished with 'floppy-email-attachments' which have been the standard fare for the last 46 days of operation. These manual agendas had to be done at the end of each UTC day which is 7:00 PM EST. To date we have logged well over 800,000 observations for the 191-country, UN-NASA SIDMON Radio Telescope Network for International Heliophysical and International Polar Year. This makes us part of the world's largest telescope array.

THANK YOU CHRIS!

-- Mike Jefferson

Update - February 6, 2008: Click here to view recent LOFAR data now available on the Stanford Solar Center's SID Database site. This is actual data recorded by HAA member Mike Jefferson's homemade LOFAR radio antenna! Data is indicated by the legend to the right of graph as "LOFAR NAA S-0090-FB-0090".

January LOFAR II Radio Antenna Reports [Updated]

Click here for latest January reports on the LOFAR II antenna and project. Included is a graph of the January 6 readings. Update - January 21, 2008: New report for January 20, including new chart showing Jan. 20 readings, with Jan. 6 readings superimposed.

January Telescope Clinic a Huge Success!

• Click here or on the picture to view the Spectator video.
• Click here for more details, and members' comments, about this telescope clinic.