Join us this Friday, January 13  for our first members meeting of the new year! Our guest speaker will be John Gauvreau. His topic for the evening will be The Elephant in the Room – The Nature of our Sun and Observing a Star Up Close.

From its fiery heart where all our light and heat originates, to its tenuous outer atmosphere seen during an eclipse, our Sun gives us a remarkable opportunity to study a star up close. While we all strive to see the faintest starlight from distant galaxies, let’s spend an evening studying the often overlooked elephant in the room; a star right on our doorstep!

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

• HAA Explorers
• The Sky for January 2023
• What’s Up in Awards? January ’23 – February ’23
• NASA Night Sky Notes
• The Moon and Mars December 7, 2022 Members’ Gallery
• Plus More

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

Photo credit: The Moon in April 1977, by Jo Ann Salci

Join us this Friday, December 9th for our December members meeting. It will be held at McMaster Innovation Park, and all members are invited to attend the meeting and enjoy the presentations. The facility is located at 175 Longwood Rd. S. in Hamilton.

This month, we will be enjoying an abbreviated version. There will not be a featured speaker so that we can get through the announcements and the Sky This Month segment and adjourn to the atrium for our annual Christmas social.

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

• HAA Explorers
• The Sky This Month for November 2022
• What’s Up in Awards? November – December 2022
• The Search for Life on Mars, Part 3
• NASA Night Sky Notes
• Eye Candy
• Plus More

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

Photo credit: M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, by Pavle Culu

Join us on Friday November 11 at McMaster Innovation Park for our November members meeting! This will be your opportunity to purchase our brand new 2023 Celestial Events Calendar hot off the press!

We will have some of our resident calendar astrophotographers on hand to speak about their images, so this will be a can’t miss for aspiring astrophotographers.

Stephen Germann will also be there with a new edition of The Sky This Month. We will also be giving away some door prizes. Don’t forget that we gladly accept donations of food or cash for delivery to Hamilton FoodShare. Anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated!

Doors open at 7:00 PM and the meeting begins at 7:30 PM. For those not able to attend in person, we will be livestreaming the meeting on ZOOM for club members and on Facebook for all others. The meeting will also be posted on our YouTube channel approximately within 48-72 hours after the meeting.

We hope to see you there!

Photo credit: wikipedia.com

Join us on Friday October 14 at McMaster Innovation Park for our October members meeting! On this night we will be holding our annual general meeting and give you the opportunity to learn a little more about the club and council.

As usual, there will be a new edition of The Sky This Month. We will also be giving away some door prizes. Don’t forget that we gladly accept donations of food or cash for delivery to Hamilton FoodShare. Anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated!

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

In this issue you’ll find…

• HAA Explorers
• The Sky This Month for October 2022
• What’s Up in Awards? October – November 2022
• NASA Night Sky Notes
• Eye Candy
• Plus More

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

Photo credit: Star Trails around the North Celestial Pole, by Dan Copeland

Join us this Friday September 9 live and in person as we return to McMaster Innovation Park for our September members meeting! Our guest speaker will be former HAA Chair John Gauvreau. His topic for the evening will be Knowing Galaxias – How we have seen and understood the Milky Way through time.

Anyone who has ventured away from the city lights is struck by the vividness of the night sky and the abundance of stars that appear.  The Milky Way is seen stretching across the sky, a soft yet bright light that circles us.  Yet our understanding that the Milky Way is a galaxy, an island universe as it was called, is new and was, in astronomical terms, hotly debated as recently as the 20^th century.

Let’s have a look at our galaxy through the eyes of the ancients, the discovery of the telescope and right up to the most recent views across the full spectrum available to us now, to really understand our place in our island universe, the Via Lactea.

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

In this issue you’ll find…

• HAA Explorers
• The Sky This Month for June 2022
• What’s Up in Awards? June – September 2022
• Earth Grazing Eclipses II – Non Central
• NASA Night Sky Notes
• Eye Candy
• Plus More

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

Photo credit: M57, the Ring Nebula, by Pavle Culum

Join us on Friday, June 10, starting at 7:30 PM EDT for our last meeting before we break for summer, as we welcome Dr. Paul Delaney as our special guest. Dr. Delaney will give us a fascinating presentation about Solar Observing.

Amateur astronomers tend to be “night owls” forgetting about THE brightest star in the sky: our Sun.  Observing the Sun is relatively easy being available every day of the year, can often be seen through modest cloud cover and does not interrupt those romantic dinners in the evening with your partner.  A few precautions must be adhered to when observing the Sun, but tracking sunspots, observing solar prominences, chasing solar eclipses and venturing out at night to observe aurorae are all worthwhile and fulfilling aspects of observing our Sun.  This talk will give a backgrounder about our nearest star and some of the values associated with observing it.