The RAS startedin 1949 October as a group of local astronomers wanting to set up a group. The society, with a great deal of cooperative effort and some ingenious designs, constructed a 7-inch refracting telescope in the Bon Air vicinity of the Richmond area; this telescope is still usable today despite light pollution. The club has hosted a number of events, especially Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies (VAAS) meetings, and has worked closely with the Science Museum of Virginia to sponsor such things as regular and special sky watches and Astronomy Day programs.

A meteor image captured in 2002

At our August meeting we had several visitors who were interested in the Perseid meteor shower. A number of us were hoping to see some Perseids after the meeting, but it wasn’t to be.  Clouds obscured the view.  Maybe we will have an opportunity to see some stragglers on a following night.

John Raymond presented our short talk at the meeting. As many of you know, John has been kind enough to become our Outreach Coordinator and has arranged for a number of skywatch events in the late summer and fall.  These include events at Bryan Park, Meadow Glen and the Masonic Home.  As the events come up, John will be soliciting volunteers to deploy telescopes at the events.  Please help him as you are available.  The calendar on our test web site provides the dates.

For those of you that could not be at the meeting on Tuesday, you missed some great pictures of Betty and Ken Wilson’s recent trip to Asia to see July’s total solar eclipse. They have each seen a number of total eclipses.  Judging from their pictures and stories this one did not disappoint.  Betty showed us pictures of sights in China eclipse along with some wide field images of the eclipse itself.

Ken showed us some close-up images taken at various moments during totality, a video of the eclipse and a very cool composite image made from several individual images taken at various exposures during totality.  Using this compositing technique, Ken was able to combine the images to bring out detail in the prominences at the sun’s surface along with detail in the corona.  The video of the eclipse was particularly interesting in that it showed the motion of the ship as people were trying to image the event.

Betty explained that the captain was quite accommodating to the eclipse-chasing passengers by navigating the ship along the path of totality to extend the few minutes of the total eclipse by a few seconds.  If you travel that far to see an eclipse, a few seconds extra eclipse time is worth the effort.

Betty also announced that an asteroid has been named for Ken. Its designation is “84951 Kenwilson.”  Congratulations to Ken on this honor.  It is not an “earth-crosser” and so is not a potentially hazardous object, but, when Ken says that there is an asteroid out there with his name on it – he’s right.

Don’t forget about the mini star party on Friday, August 14 at the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation.  Directions to the camp are here.  After passing through the main entrance, turn right, travel about 0.1 mile and turn right at the sign with a picture of a telescope on it.  For GPS users, the address is 1723 Maidens Rd. in Goochland (observing site coordinates N 37.678986, W 77.8708).  If there is another event at the camp which will have lights that may interfere with observing, Tim Streagle will move us to another location.  If this is the case, signs will indicate the new location.

Regards,
Jim Browder
Richmond Astronomical Society

Brandermill Skywatch: What a great skywatch we had at Brandermill on Monday night!   Many thanks to John Raymond for coordinating the event with Jennifer Strader of the Brandermill Community Association and to Terry Barker, Jim Blowers, Sue Brubaker, Gary Cowardin, Dave Credicott, Ray Moody, Hank Nebel and Dave Walton for bringing telescopes and their expertise to the skywatch.

The event was very well attended – local residents came out to see the sights along with a contingent from the Brandermill Retirement Community.  We had lots of good questions and lots of interested folks, including a number of kids.  One young attendee was particularly excited to see Jupiter rise over the tree line.  As soon as he saw it, he announced to the crowd a number of times and at high volume, “Jupiter has arrived, Jupiter has arrived!”  That was pretty cool.

Some guessimated that we had as many as 200 over the course of the evening.  The location was convenient – easy to find with plenty of parking and space to unload, but we did have to deal with lights in the parking lot.  Fortunately we were able to deploy our equipment behind the glare of the lights, but we will try to have the lights extinguished for the next event.  The problem is, as is often the case, access to the controls and whether lights on the same circuit are being used by others.

As Terry noted in his event report (http://richastro.org/index.php/events/brandermill/), we were treated to a nearly full moon and a bright Iridium flare almost directly overhead along with the Summer Triangle stars, the Ring Nebula and some views of Jupiter later in the evening.  We had a variety of scopes deployed, including a large Dob, several refractors and Schmidt-Cassegrains.  I deployed an electronic display of images captured by various club members.  Dave and Terry set up the club’s Stellacam video system for some outstanding images of lunar features along the moon’s terminator.

By all reports it was a very good event.  Thanks once again to everyone who helped and brought telescopes.  You all made the event – couldn’t have done it without you.

Upcoming Events: Be sure to check the calendar as it is rapidly developing into a busy late summer and autumn of the International Year of Astronomy.  In addition to our regular meetings and skywatch events at the Science Museum of Virginia, we have skywatch events at Bryan Park, the Masonic Home and Meadow Glen.  We also have some mini-star parties at the Goochland Scout Camp and are developing a gathering to celebrate our 60^th anniversary, tentatively scheduled for October 17.  Please keep an eye on the calendar for new information (http://richastro.org/index.php/calendar/).

Regards,

Jim Browder
Richmond Astronomical Society

July Meeting: At the July meeting, we heard a re-cap of the Green Bank Star Quest from Terry Barker.  Several RAS members attended and, from all reports, enjoyed the event.  This star party has been held for the past six years at the National Radio Observatory in Green Bank, WV.  The event is sponsored by the Central Appalachian Astronomy Club, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Kanawha Valley Astronomical Society.  There is a video of the event on YouTube.

The location is a good dark sky site and there are very interesting attractions at the radio observatory and in the area.  The event is definitely worth the trip.  More info here .

Also at the July meeting, Chris McCann provided an overview of archaeoastronomy, essentially a study of the way in which ancient cultures viewed and used information gleaned from astronomical observations.  I found particularly fascinating the various ways different cultures interpreted different events.  Some events were consistently believed to portend negative events while other events had completely different meanings to different cultures.  Interestingly, though, it is very common for human societies to interpret a direct connection between celestial and earthly events, even when the perceived connection is superstitious at best – very interesting how our brains are wired.  Chris also touched on the way some cultures used the predictive power of their astronomers/astrologers to influence the populace or used their knoweledge in a defensive way against enemies.

Solar Observing: Last weekend, several RAS members gathered at the observatory to take look at the sun (through a properly protected telescope, of course) and check out the level of solar activity.  As would be expected, given the recent low level of solar activity, there was not much action on the sun.  With his Daystar solar filter, of which I am jealous, Randy Tatum treated us to a view of the sun’s granular surface and we managed to catch a few small prominences.  Even though the activity is low, I always enjoy seeing prominences and they way they change over the course of a few minutes.

VAAS 2009: Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the next meeting of the Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies, this year to be held in Charlottesville.  The agenda sounds like it will be interesting and we appreciate the work of the Charlottesville Astronomical Society in putting the event together.  More information is at http://www.cvilleastro.org/vaas/ .  Hope to see everyone at the event.

Regards,
Jim Browder
Richmond Astronomical Society

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A few updates …

The next meeting of the Richmond Astronomical Society will be on Tuesday, July 14 at the Science Museum of Virginia at 7:30 PM. Chris McCann will be presenting on “General Archaeoastronomy 101: How ancient cultures understood celestial events and how they used astronomy in their lives.” We also plan to have Terry Barker tell us about the Green Bank StarQuest by video link.

A number of us will be gathering at the Arby’s across from the Science Museum for dinner before the meeting. Please join us if you can – everyone is welcome to the meeting and the pre-meeting dinner.
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I went outside at 20:53 last night to see the Iridium flare. I thought an annoying cirrus cloud from the off-coast pinwheel low would get in the way, and the sky was still rather bright. But I saw it, nearly overhead, rather than at 69 degrees. It shone intensely bright (if Betelgeuse went supernova, it would be a hundred times brighter!) and then faded. It was out in about 30 seconds.