Greg Redfern of the website What’s UP? The Space Place gave us all a good reason to stay awake at conventions: he played a video of the Chelyabinsk meteor exploding over Russia in 2013. The shock wave damaged 7,200 buildings and injured over 1,500 people. Needless to say, the playback over the sound system was LOUD. … Read more
Tyler Hutchison Wins Horkheimer Youth Award . Tyler Hutchison wins the National Horkheimer/D’Auria Youth Service Award! RAS Board Member Tyler Hutchison was recently awarded the National Horkheimer/D’Auria Youth Service Award sponsored by the Astronomical League. This is an outstanding honor! Congratulations Tyler! . The Award is based upon service to the League, either directly or … Read more
Lots of star party opportunities in the mid-Atlantic region and beyond. Below are the ones for which we have information. If you would like another event to be listed or have more information on one of the events below, please send a note to president@richastro.org. __________________________ Winter Star Party, February 4 – 10, Camp Weesumkee … Read more
. On April 20 John Raymond, Ray Moody and I traveled by car to Suffern, NY for the 2018 Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) show (27th year!). Indeed, quite a show it is. . The lengthy trip was a pleasant one, with no shortage of discussion among the three of us about the world of astronomy. … Read more
RAS Board Meeting – August 28, 2017 President Jim Browder called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. Attendees (10): Jim Browder, President Matthew Roy, Vice President Jim Blowers, Treasurer Chris McCann, Secretary Gary Cowardin Ken Wilson Terry Barker Joe Racette Betty Wilson Mike Lico Michael Pitchford Missing: Ted Bethune Tyler Hutcheson … Read more
2017 MAY Board Meeting Attending: Jim Blowers, Matthew Roy, Mike Pitchford, Jim Browder, Mike Lico, John Raymond (Observatory Director, non board member), Ken Wilson, Tyler Hutchison, Madhup Rathi, Terry Barker Secretary report: One member didn’t get his May Astronomy magazine. Report accepted. Treasurer report: Accepted. Observatory report: The tree on a … Read more
Clouds, clouds, and more clouds. ECSP, sponsored by Kent Blackwell, ran from Thursday 10/12 to Saturday 10/14, but it was cloudy every night. For those who could stay one more day, Sunday turned out to be the redeeming factor. It was clear, but oh, the result of hitting the dew point was almost as bad … Read more
We’ve had some pretty large crowds at the SMV, but Aug. 21 of 2017 was one of the largest I’ve seen. Since we gave away 750 pairs of eclipse glasses, I’m estimating we had at least 800 people there. As you can see from the pictures here and below, it was pretty much standing room … Read more
I used an app called Nextdoor last Saturday night to announce a skywatch that I wanted to hold at my local high school. The tennis courts at the school are perfect, because there aren’t any parking lot lights in sight. And the webbing they have up on the surrounding fence almost completely eliminates the glare … Read more