glFusion Site

Volunteers Needed

tonyu13 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:58:49 -0500

The YMCA weekend campout is in two weeks. There are still spaces available if you would like to come to this event.

The organizer of this event says they are on track and expect 800 attendees. CFAS will provide both day and night observing during this event. We could use a few more volunteers to show the public what serious amateur astronomy is all about.

Change of March Meeting Date

tonyu13 — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 11:21:42 -0500

New Date for March General Meeting will be March 17th 2010

Due to the fact that electricity and A/C will be turned off at all campuses for the ENTIRE week of spring break we have to move up our March General Meeting by one week to March 17th 2010.

Overview of NASA's SDO Mission

Jason Higley — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:15:14 -0500

At the next CFAS General Meeting the topic will be "3D Sun and Solar Dynamics Observatory - The Variable Sun", here's a brief minute and a half video "Overview of NASA's SDO Mission"

Winter Star Party 2010

RayJones — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:38:49 -0500

This article is about this year's Winter Star Party that is held in the Florida keys.

Winter Star Party 2010

Our Site on the "Berm"

The Winter Star Part of 2010 turned out to be a disappointment this year for those that wanted the chance to do a lot of astrophotography. The weather gods managed to keep the wind blowing 15 to 20 knots or more during the six days of the event. Two major fronts came through the area, and the normally mild temperatures dipped into the 40s on several nights. Only one night was completely clear of clouds, and the attendees were able to see magnificent views of Eta Carina, Omega Centari, and Alpha Centari in the lower part of the milky way. For many it was their first view of these objects along with the Southern Cross constellation.

Door Prize Time

Still it was a great time visiting many friends and talking with the many vendors about their products. As usual many bargains were available, and hundreds of telescopes were on display with their owners eager to show them off. For many just being out of the terrible winter storms in the rest of the country was worth the trip to the Florida keys. The clouds made for some great sunsets, but made serious observing difficult at best.

The door prize drawing was held on Friday afternoon instead of Saturday. As a result most folks left on Saturday after strong winds and cloudy skies were forecast in the evening. The door prizes were many, and also very valuable. The grand prizes included an 8 inch Meade LX 90 ACF LS, a Meade ETX plus a Astro Tech 8 inch f/4 Imaging Newtonian OTA, and a Televue 21 mm Ethos eyepiece. This star party also has a special program for children under 16 including prizes for those that excel during their sessions. Several won small telescopes.

CFAS Members: Ray, Millie, Barbra, Steve

This year about 600 people attended the star party. The facilities at the site are much better than they were when I attended 7 years ago. Power and sanitation were not an issue unlike that of years past. The food vendor was excellent as were the many lectures given during the day.

As an amateur astronomer you should plan to attend this star party at least once, but perhaps not in an “El Nino” year !

The Sunsets are Great !

CFAS Member Discovers Nova U Scorpii Eruption

RayJones — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:26:34 -0500

Dr. Barbara Harris, a CFAS member, discovers star U Scorpii nova eruption. See the story here from Sky & Telescope: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/83025892.html or as posted on this website's Downloads section.

February Guest Speaker Gil Gagne on Go-To Scopes

Jason Higley — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:03:47 -0500

The February 10th CFAS General Meeting will feature guest speaker Gil Gagne describing the various concepts that go into a "goto" telescope, and will give a PowerPoint presentation on the design and construction of his own hand-made 12" goto telescope, including the grinding and figuring of the mirror, adding stepper motors, encoders, microprocessor, and programming. Gil is very interested in motivating others to get into the interesting field of Amateur Telescope Making. CFAS General Meetings are held at the Seminole State College Planetarium on every second Wednesday of the month, begin at 7 p.m., and are free and open to the public.

CFAS Telescopes

RayJones — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:14:10 -0500

CFAS owns and maintains numerous telescopes. You can find details about these telescopes at this web site: http://www.cfas.org/filemgmt_data/files/CFAS%20Telescopes.pdf .

These telescopes are maintained in two categories; Outreach and Loaner telescopes.

Loaner telescopes are available to be checked out from the observing committee for up to 30 days. Check outs are normally scheduled at the monthly meetings although special arrangements can be made. CFAS members can reserve telescopes by posting on the CFAS Telescope Forum: http://www.cfas.org/forum/index.php?forum=16

Outreach telescopes are very high end telescopes that are used during our Outreach observing events, and are maintained by CFAS members. These telescopes are normally avaiable for viewing objects during monthly observing sessions. Please make it a point to spend some time observing through them at our sessions.

If you have questions please contact the observing chairman: raygjones@earthlink.net .

Winter Quarter Observing News

RayJones — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:46:15 -0500

This is the 2010 Winter Quarter Observing News

0BSERVING NEWS

WINTER 2010

Happy New Year fellow astronomers!! I hope all had an enjoyable holiday season and are looking forward to trying out those new astronomy gifts during 2010. After a long cloudy summer the fall observing opportunities were disappointing also. Let’s hope this winter has more favorable weather during our new moon weekends.

I have only received few replies from members concerning my last news letter inquiries on observing site preference, and interest in qualifying as an operator at the Robinson Observatory. Hopefully more of you will respond to this report. Again please send me an email at raygjones@earthlink.net or just post to this forum.

The 2010 CFAS budget includes a new instrument for the membership. In January we should receive a Mallin Cam video camera. The MallinCam TM Video CCD Observational System is manufactured by Rock Mallin of Pro-Com Electronics & Telescope Repair in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The system is designed specifically for astronomical observing. Now with the addition of HYPER circuitry, the camera has additional exposure times of 7, 14, 28 and 56 seconds. The MallinCam HYPER PLUS also incorporates a thermoelectric Peltier cooler that lowers the temperature of the CCD sensor, and allows for longer exposure times. MallinCam TM cameras are adjustable from 2X to 128X integration, and they can be used visually and for imaging the Moon and Planets without the need for additional filtration. The fact that images are in full color greatly increases the visual beauty of many astronomical objects, but especially enhances nebulosity. CFAS members will be able to use the camera for outreach programs, and it will be available during monthly viewing sessions on one of our outreach telescopes. This should be a very enjoyable addition to our observing equipment.

There will be a visual observing course held on Saturday, January 16^th at the Seminole State College Planetarium. The session will begin at 0900 and end at noon. All members are invited. Bring your questions. See my post on this subject for more details.

The telescope at the UCF Robinson observatory is in a maintenance period in order to fix some flexure issues. Once this is complete I expect to have information on how CFAS members can get checked out on this telescope and can assist with UCF research efforts.

Once the new quarter begins in January UCF has asked for help in getting their lab telescopes packaged up for factory refurbishment. These telescopes are used for their visitor observing program and by student extra credit projects. CFAS members have assisted in this outreach program in the past. If you are interested in assisting with this one time effort, please send in a reply to my forum post on this effort.

If you have not noticed the official CFAS observing nights are posted on the CFAS calendar. These are usually the Saturday nearest the new moon. When possible an alternate date is also listed. I am looking for two volunteers to assist with the observing sites. Ideally I am looking for someone who lives relatively close to the site to be the CFAS contact point for either the Ocala or Harmony site. If you are interested please contact me for additional information. Remember this is an all volunteer organization and we only exist through the efforts of our members.

If you have been frustrated with too many bad weather nights you might want to consider joining SLOOH Space camera : http://www.slooh.com/ . This web site has mountain top telescopes located in Spain, Chile and Australia that are hooked to color CCD cameras. Weather permitting, every night each telescope has an observing program. Images are processed as you watch, and take about 5 minutes each to develop. You can also sign up for your own observing time on one of the telescopes.

Wishing each, Clear skies!

CFAS Quarterly Astrolog, 4th Quarter 2009

Jason Higley — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:43:53 -0500

The Known Universe - By the American Museum of Natural History

Jason Higley — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:46:44 -0500

This video was recently on NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day; it's a simulated fly-through of the visible universe reminiscent of the Powers of 10 book/movie. Enjoy your flight.