Richmond Astronomical Society
773rd Consecutive Meeting
February 11, 2014
Greetings – approximately 33 in attendance at the meeting.
Jim Browder called our meeting to order in the Eureka meeting room.
Announcements / Share Table
Library Report—Virginia Eckert
Events and Individual Observing — RAS members
Recent Events: Science Museum, RAS Ragland Observatory open house
Astrophotolinks: RAS member and master astro-imager Madhup Rathi has created a new website for other imagers — www.astrophotolinks.com. The website is an online library of web content related to astrophotography, arranged by aspects of the imaging hobby and contains wealth of information. Please visit, share and provide feedback so Madhup can enhance the content.
Survey of Women in Amateur Astronomy: Karen Jennings, Vice President of the Astronomy Foundation, is conducting a survey of women in amateur astronomy. Please pass along to any women amateur astronomers you know at any level of expertise or involvement: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q62D2HW
Survey of Amateur Astronomers: Tim Spuck with the Oil Region Astronomical Observatory has asked our members to complete a survey to assess general awareness among astronomers of major observatory facilities. The survey takes about 3-5 minutes and is available at the link below. Tim asks that we pass it along to other astronomy enthusiasts: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7Q2LJBZ
Upcoming Events:
Note: John Raymond’s list of 2014 astro events is posted on the Richastro.org web site under the “RAS Update” tab.
RAS Board of Directors meeting, February 17, 7:00 PM: The RAS Board of Directors will meet at Extra Billy’s restaurant on Broad Street at 7:00 PM. Reservations will be made for 6:00 PM for those that wish to eat dinner. RAS Board meetings are open and any member who wishes to participate in the meetings is welcome to attend. You do not need to be a board member to participate.
Science Museum of Virginia Skywatch, Friday, February 21, 6:30 PM: RAS will have its regular monthly skywatch at the Science Museum starting at 6:30 PM. Please join us and bring a telescope if you can. It will begin to get dark shortly before 6:00, so please feel free to set up before sunset if you like.
Science Pub RVA, TBD: Look for the next Science Pub RVA event announcement on their website at http://sciencepubrva.org/. Science Pub RVA is planning to host a session on citizen science. If you have a suggestion for any citizen science contributions that might be of general interest to the Science Pub participants, please pass them along to president@richastro.org.
Thomas Jefferson High School Skywatch, Tuesday, March 18, 6:30 – 8:30 PM: Thomas Jefferson high school is having an astronomy night in conjunction with a PTSA meeting and RAS has been asked to help with a skywatch. The event will likely be well- attended; please join us and bring a scope if you can. Thomas Jefferson is located at 4100 West Grace St. in Richmond; Google map to the school at this link: http://goo.gl/maps/nhA8Z. Please send a message to president@richastro.org if you can help with this event.
Skywatch at Caroline Middle School, Wednesday, April 2: RAS has received an invitation to assist with a skywatch at Caroline Middle School in Caroline County. If you are interested in helping with this skywatch, please contact Jim Browder at president@richastro.org.