RAS Fall Picnic and a Busy October Coming Up

Many many thanks! Our volunteers put forth a huge amount of time and effort to coordinate and support our many outreach events and skywatches as well as moving and organizing our library books, caring for our observatory and taking care of the club’s business and other activities.  I cannot begin to thank everyone properly.  It never ceases to amaze me how giving our members are of their time and expertise.  We are truly fortunate to have such a great group of folks in our organization.  Although never said often enough, please accept my thanks on behalf of the RAS for all you do.  We absolutely could not reach as many people as we do, providing stunning views of celestial objects that we all find so fascinating without the support from our volunteers.

I often receive positive feedback and thanks from folks who attend the skywatches we support.  Below is an e-mail regarding the recent skywatch at City Point in Hopewell:

“I would like to thank the volunteers who found their way into the distant shores of Hopewell to share their time with so many Boy Scouts and a few of us adults on Saturday night.  It was a delightful experience.  I appreciate the willingness of those volunteers to work with us on educational events.

Kathleen”

RAS Fall Picnic: RAS will be hosting a picnic on October 16, starting at 5:00 PM at the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation in Goochland County.  We will have the picnic in the shelter near the entrance of the cub scout section and observing under the dark skies of Goochland County afterward.

RAS will be providing hamburgers and hot dogs.  Please bring a dish to share and let Prashant Reddy know what you plan to bring.  His e-mail address is ReddyPVA@verizon.net.

Directions to the camp are at:  See http://bradysaunders.net/camp/direct.html.

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October events: We have lots of events coming up in late September and throughout October.  Here is a list of the ones for which we have information.  If you know of others, please let us know.

Skywatch at Scotchtown: September 24, 7:00 PM, (http://www.apva.org/scotchtown/calendar/).  Please contact John Raymond at raymond7419@verizon.net if you can help out.

Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies, Annual Conference: October 9, Roanoke College, Roanoke, VA, 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM with evening observing (http://www.rvasclub.org).

RAS Fall picnic: October 16 – details above.

East Coast Star Party: October 29 – 30, Hampton Lodge Campground, Coinjock, NC.  Advance registration is not required. Contact Kent Blackwell at kent@exis.net for more information.

Fall Star Party at Camp: November 6 – The Heart of Virginia Scout Council is hosting a fall star party and the public is invited.  Please see http://bradysaunders.net/camp/starparty.html for more information.

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What’s Up? Whether you want a brief synopsis of what’s up in the sky this week or you want a complete tour of the night sky or just a weather forecast, the What’s Up and Weather pages on the RichAstro web site have loads of information complied in one location for just this purpose.  Tabs at the top of each page on our Richastro site link to theses pages or you can go directly to the addresses below.  Virginia Skylines on the What’s Up page is done weekly by our own Leslie Bochenski.

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Dark Skies, Bright Kids: Be sure to support the Dark Skies, Bright Kids program by voting for their project in the Pepsi Refresh Challenge.  The more votes they receive, the more likely they are to be awarded a $25,000 grant to put their bilingual astronomy book in every school in Virginia.  Please help out if you can.   It’s simple and free and you can vote once per day.

Regards,

Jim Browder
Richmond Astronomical Society