Meetings
January 12th 2018 General Meeting
Welcome to the world of amateur astronomy! Join members of the HAA as they guide you through the first steps of this fascinating hobby, with a simple introduction to the types of telescopes to choose from, the parts and pieces, and how to use them. Then imagine stepping outside to look up at the night sky, and enjoy the second half of the talk with a guide to the types of celestial objects within your reach and how to get the most out of a new scope with realistic expectations of actually seeing the stars, planets and more. Those who are interested can go further by joining the HAA Beginners Group and enjoy more seminars, all as a necessary precursor to borrowing one of the club’s loaner scopes.
Friday December 8th General Meeting
Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn will be discussing how to prepare and plan for a night of imaging with special consideration to location, time, weather and sky quality considerations. She will also be discussing how to interpret weather forecasts and use various websites, apps and desktop software in order to optimize your night out under the stars. Her talk will also be applicable to those who aren’t interesting in photography.
General Meeting for November 10th 2017.
Barry Sherman will be speaking on telescope eyepieces at this Friday’s November 10th general meeting.
Calendar
The HAA 2018 Celestial Events Calendar will be available at this event.
General Meeting for October 13th 2017.
Kevin Salwach will be speaking about this day in astronomy history, covering some of astronomy’s notable figures.
Kevin Salwach is a councillor-at-large with the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers, and has been a member of the club for almost a decade. Kevin first discovered his love of the cosmos at McMaster’s McCallion Planetarium in winter 2008, and after seeing Saturn through Jim Wamsley’s telescope at an HAA public night the following spring, he was hooked for life. An avid amateur astronomer, pilot, hunter and trapper, Kevin can frequently be found observing the stars from the balcony of his apartment in downtown Hamilton or enjoying the great outdoors in the forests of Flamborough and Dundas.
General Meeting for September 8th 2017.
If you’re considering becoming a new member of the HAA then this is the perfect general meeting to attend. Our chair, Bernie Venasse will be covering what new members can expect from the HAA. For existing members, Bernie will continue with HAA events of recent past, what is happening now and what is coming in the near future. Come join us this Friday for a fun evening and the sharing of our passion for everything cosmic!
Bernie Venasse is the HAA’s Chairman and has been an active astronomer since the days of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. He is an active member of the British Astronomical Association, The International Dark Sky Association, the Astronomical League and Astronomers without Borders.
General Meeting for June 9th 2017.
With space exploration making it’s way back to public interest with the recent flyby of Pluto, new Chinese space stations, talk of manned missions to Mars, top-secret US Air Force space planes and private companies like SpaceX making leaps and bounds in rocket technology, we often overlook the men and women behind the shiny rockets and high tech space probes. Join Kevin as he counts down his list of the 10 Most Influential People in space history – the scientists, engineers, politicians, and of course the astronauts themselves, who’s efforts have resulted in the success of humanity’s journey from home to explore the cosmos.
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General Meeting for May 12th 2017.
This Spring SkyShed is launching POD MAX, a “mid sized” observatory at 12.5′ in diameter, and the POD MAX funding program – The Starships Project. Wayne will be focusing on these endeavors and how they will further aid the astro community, and STEM education.
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General Meeting for April 7th 2017.
This talk will focus on the past, present, and future of big data in astronomy. “Big data” is the hot new thing in finance, health care, advertising and more. But as one of the first observational sciences, astronomy has been dealing with big data for thousands of years. New and imminent facilities for capturing and storing astronomical observations will lead to what some call the “tsunami of data” in astronomy. Techniques like machine learning and citizen science are needed to get the most science out of these enormous datasets. I’ll tell you about how big our big data in astronomy really is, and about some of the discoveries that it has enabled.
General Meeting for March 10th 2017.
Massive stars, young or old, are interesting celestial objects with fascinating mysteries. In this talk, we will explore some of the mysteries of the disks around massive stars and how their formation, dissipation and structure affect our understanding of not only the planet formation but also the star formation process.
Dr. Parshati Patel received her Hons. B.Sc. in Physics and Astronomy from University of Toronto, M.Sc. in Astronomy and Planetary Science from the Western University and her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Planetary Science & Exploration from the Western University. During her graduate studies, she studied protoplanetary disks around young, massive pre-main sequence (Herbig Ae/Be) stars as well as circumstellar disks around massive main sequence stars. She is currently the Public Education and Outreach Program Coordinator at the Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration at the Western University.
General Meeting for February 10th 2017.
Barry Sherman will be discussing Chromatic Aberration and ways to mitigate this issue in your telescope optics. Barry will also include a few sample telescopes which suffer from heavy Chromatic Aberration and other issues so that you can stay away from these types of telescopes. Bernie Venasse will then open the floor in an open forum style chat to learn what you think of the club. We would like to hear your thoughts, comments and ways to improve your club.