Author Archives: Cindi Swisher

July Meeting

Date: July 27th, 2010 (Tuesday)
Time: 7-9pm

Where: (click to view map)
Fire Station 8
3737 Airport Drive – Near the Corner of Airport and Academy
Colorado Springs

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 Visitor/New Member Introductions – JimW

7:10 – 7:20 Introduction to Astronomy #8 – Scott

7:20 – 7:35 TBD

7:35 – 7:50 TBD

7:50 – 8:00 Break

8:00 – 8:55 Paul Lightsey, Senior Scientist/Engineer with the Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp (BATC) will provide a presentation on the James Webb Space Telescope

8:55 – 9:00 Wrap up – JimW

June Meeting


Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Time: 7pm – 9pm

Where:

Fire Station 16, 4890 Farthing Drive

View Larger Map

Please Note: This is different from last month!  Same place as the March meeting.

Fire Station 16
4890 Farthing Drive
Oak Meadow Park
Broadmoor Bluffs
Colorado Springs

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 Visitor/New Member Introductions – JimW

7:10 – 7:20 Business Meeting / TBD

7:20 – 7:35 Introduction to Astronomy #7 – Scott

7:35 – 7:45 What’s in the Night Sky – Floyd/Scott

7:45 – 8:00 Break

8:00 – 8:50 Presentation: TBD

8:50 – 9:00 Wrap up – JimW

May Meeting

Date: May 25, 2010 (Tuesday)
Time: 7-9pm

Where: (click to view map)
Fire Station 8
3737 Airport Drive – Near the Corner of Airport and Academy
Colorado Springs

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 Visitor/New Member Introductions – JimW

7:10 – 7:20 Introduction to Astronomy #7 – Scott

7:20 – 7:35 TBD

7:35 – 7:50 TBD

7:50 – 8:00 Break

8:00 – 8:55 TBD

8:55 – 9:00 Wrap up – JimW

May Star Party

Date: May 21st, 2010 – Friday
Time: 8pm-11pm
Location: Bear Creek – East

Co-Sponsored by El Paso County Parks

Bear Creek Park East
This is one of our primary location for public star parties.
From I-25, exit at the US 24/Cimmaron interchange. Drive west on US 24 to 21st Street. Turn south on 21st Street and drive about 0.8 miles. Turn east on Rio Grande Street. Take the first right into Bear Creek Park. The observing area is in the dirt parking lot to the east of the community gardens.		 View Map of Location

Please be sure to read our Star Party Etiquette page before you attend!

April Meeting


Where: (click to view map)
Fire Station 8
3737 Airport Drive – Near the Corner of Airport and Academy
Colorado Springs

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 Visitor/New Member Introductions – JimW

7:10 – 7:20 Introduction to Astronomy #6 – Scott

7:20 – 7:35 What’s in the Night Sky – Floyd/Scott

7:35 – 7:50 Observing Reports

7:50 – 8:00 Break

8:00 – 8:55 Screening of “400 Years of the Telescope”

8:55 – 9:00 Wrap up – JimW

Globe at Night

March 3-16

GLOBE at Night is an annual 2-week campaign in March. People all over the world record the brightness of their night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars. They submit their measurements on-line and a few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements.

Go to the Globe at Night website for more info and to participate!

March Meeting


Date: Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Time: 7pm – 9pm

Where:  (click to view map)
Fire Station 16
4890 Farthing Drive
Oak Meadow Park
Broadmoor Bluffs
Colorado Springs

Agenda:

7:00 – 7:10 Visitor/New Member Introductions – JimW

7:10 – 7:20 RMSS Update – Al

7:20 – 7:35 Introduction to Astronomy #3 – Scott

7:35 – 7:45 What’s in the Night Sky – Floyd/Scott

7:45 – 8:00 Break

8:00 – 8:50 Presentation: Astronomical Alignment of the Big Horn Medicine Wheel – Bruce Bookout

8:50 – 9:00 Wrap up – JimW

Hypoxic Observer – February 2010

Table of Contents:

  1. February Meeting Location
  2. IMHO – Editorial – NASA’s cancellation of space vehicle program
  3. Planetary Report – Mars, Venus, Saturn
  4. From NASA – Single Crystal Silicone Mirrors
  5. Upcoming Events for March & April

If you click on the link below the PDF file will open in your browser if your browser supports it. You can then click on the save icon that appears in the lower right of the screen when you hover over the page.

Download/View the Feb 2010 issue of the Hypoxic Observer

Broadmoor Elementary Star Party 2/16/10

CSAS Member Rick sets up his telescope
CSAS Member Rick sets up his telescope

CSAS Outreach Volunteers put on a star party for the 4th grade classes of Rachel Embry and Helen Wing at Broadmoor Elementary.  The sky was wonderfully clear and the temperatures hovered right around freezing and a tad below.  All in all a beautiful night for stargazing!  Rachel Embry, helped set up the event through Rick Meinig, who is a CSAS member and Jim West, CSAS’s Outreach Coordinator.Continue reading “Broadmoor Elementary Star Party 2/16/10”

What’s that Star’s Name?

listenEver wonder how to pronounce the names of some of the stars or constellations? Like Bootes? Or Cepheus? Or Dubhe?

Astronomical Society of the Pacific published a guide in 1936 which is available online as a pdf document —

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1936PASP…48..139R/0000140.000.html

Starry Night also has a pronunciation guide which, along with the written pronunciation, has a quicktime audio file so you can actually hear it spoken.

http://www.starrynighteducation.com/resources_pronunciation.html

So, how do YOU pronounce Bootes?

If you’d like to discuss this, please go to our forums:
http://www.csastro.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13220#13220

USAFA Star Party 2/5/10

USAFA020510
Amateur Astronomer Volunteers

CSAS volunteers helped USAFA put on an educational event for the Academy Charter School in Castle Rock, CO. The students (approx 70) and teachers were divided into several groups and participated in educational activities inside USAFA’s Observatory, toured the Observatory, and when the clouds permitted looked through our telescopes to view planets, nebulae, binary stars, and galaxies! You can see by the picture we know how to stay warm when observing in Colorado! We enjoyed sharing our love of the stars with the students, and we appreciate USAFA allowing us to participate in this event!

January Meeting – Review

Just wanted to thank all of you who braved the cold and found the new location for our meeting! It was well attended with many current members and several visitors and new members! Floyd gave a great presention with the Stellarium software and Scott another winner of a powerpoint on how to find an object in the sky… i.e. Setting Circles / Dead Reckoning / Star Hopping.

If you attended you know what I mean, and if you couldn’t make it, we’re working on getting the powerpoints on the website with narration, so stay tuned.

We didn’t get to the “Show-N-Tele” portion of the night due to time constraints and the need to get out of the library by 9pm. On that subject. if you’d like to give some feedback on the meeting place, there is a topic in the forums at:

http://www.csastro.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3303 where we are discussing the meeting space.

We’ll get a post here on the next meeting when we know more than the date…

March Public Star Party

Date: March 26th, 2010 – Friday – CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER
Time: 7:30-11pm
Location: Bear Creek – East

Bear Creek Park East
This is one of our primary location for public star parties.
From I-25, exit at the US 24/Cimmaron interchange. Drive west on US 24 to 21st Street. Turn south on 21st Street and drive about 0.8 miles. Turn east on Rio Grande Street. Take the first right into Bear Creek Park. The observing area is in the dirt parking lot to the east of the community gardens.		 View Map of Location

Please be sure to read our Star Party Etiquette page before you attend!

Galaxy Zoo

galaxy_zoo

A couple of days ago I came across this very interesting and “cool” website! Part of the Zooniverse (there is a link to Zooniverse on the links page). From the Zooniverse website, “Galaxy Zoo – The original Zooniverse project. Help astronomers figure out how galaxies form and evolve by classifying their shape. Over 50 million classifications so far but we need more!”

You register at the Galaxy Zoo website and then you can participate by classifying galaxies. They show you how and then you just classify when you have time. You can save the galaxies that you like the most to your own “gallery”. You can get very technical info on each galaxy, but don’t expect the Messier number!

There are also other things you can participate in, such as merging galaxies and detecting supernovae.  Enjoy!

The Quadrantic Meteor Shower

The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers of the year, but observers can be disappointed if conditions are not just right. The point from where the Quadrantid meteors appear to radiate is located within the extinct constellation Quadrans Muralis. On modern star charts, this radiant is located where the constellations Hercules, Boötes, and Draco meet in the sky. The shower can appear almost nonexistent until about 11 p.m. Unfortunately, the radiant does not attain a very high altitude for most Northern Hemisphere observers before morning twilight puts an end to the show. The best observations are actually possible from countries with high northern latitudes, such as Canada, Finland, Sweden, and Norway. The display is virtually nonexistent for observers in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Quadrantids generally begin on December 28 and end on January 7, with maximum generally occurring during the morning hours of January 3/4. The Quadrantids are barely detectable on the beginning and ending dates, but observers in the Northern Hemisphere can see from 10 to around 60 meteors per hour at maximum. The maximum only lasts for a few hours.

For more info, go to the Meteor Showers Online website: http://meteorshowersonline.com/quadrantids.html