The April issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!
In this issue you’ll find…
Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.
Photo credit: Open Clusters M44 and M67, by Bob Christmas
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.
The March issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!
In this issue you’ll find…
Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.
Photo credit: Orion Nebula by Jim Wamsley
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.
There’s a fast-moving returning comet in the sky, and we can see it with binoculars!
Comet 45P Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova
Here’s a link to the finder charts. The time is in universal time, so you will need to add 5 hours to the EST to get the time to use. Right now the Comet is not far from Hercules and is in the morning sky.
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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.
The February issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!
In this issue you’ll find…
Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.
Photo credit: The Moon & Venus by Chris White
Links for the leap second mention at tonight’s The Sky this Month:
…and for the International Occultation Timing Association. The focus of the IOTA has shifted from grazes to pure occultations where the double-ness of a star can be measured. In some cases this is the only way to know the star is a double.
To see how eclipse totality duration varies depending on observing locations see this page with detailed contour maps:
Photo Credit: Mercury Transit – Bill Tekatch
General Meeting for January 13th 2016.
Bernie Venasse will be speaking about caring for your telescope optics which includes a video from Sky and Telescope. Bernie Venasse is HAA 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.
Kevin Salwach will also be speaking on his favourite astronauts. Kevin Salwach is an HAA Councillor-at-Large, and has been a member of the club since 2009. Also a member of the British Astronomical Association and the International Dark Sky Association, Kevin is a devoted backyard astronomer and avid naturalist. He can frequently be found exploring the night sky with his 10″ Dob from his home on the West Mountain here in Hamilton.
The January issue of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Event Horizon newsletter is now available for download!
In this issue you’ll find…
Download the latest issue or visit the newsletters section for past issues.
Photo credit: The Dumbbell Nebula (M27), by Bernd Mueller.
