Club Meeting Announcement for August 2016

The next meeting of the Huachuca Astronomy Club will be held on Friday, August 19th, at 7 pm in the Student Union community room of Cochise College.

The speaker will be Wen-fai Fong, Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Arizona. Her talk is entitled “The Energetic World of Gamma-ray Bursts and Gravitational Waves”.

Abstract:

Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic explosions in the Universe since the Big Bang itself. Decades of research suggest that these explosions are likely caused by the mergers of two neutron stars, or a neutron star and a black hole. In addition to gamma-ray bursts, these merging neutron stars are also expected to produce gravitational wave emission. Here, I introduce you to the exciting world of gamma-ray bursts and describe what it is like to study them. I also discuss the first detection of gravitational waves and prospects for the upcoming revolutionary era of gravitational wave discovery.Continue reading→

August 2016 Nightfall Newsletter is now available

The August 2016 edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download. Submissions for next month’s issue can be sent to , our Nightfall editor.

July 2016 Nightfall Newsletter is now available

The July 2016 edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download. Submissions for next month’s issue can be sent to , our Nightfall editor.

Club Meeting Announcement for July 2016

The next meeting of the Huachuca Astronomy Club will be held on Friday, July 15th, at 7 pm in the Student Union community room of Cochise College.

The featured speaker is Tom Polakis of the Saguaro Astronomy Club. He will discuss time-lapse imaging with DSLR, planetary, and CCD cameras.

Tom is a well-known amateur astronomer, photographer and writer. His articles have appeared in Deep Sky, Astronomy magazine and Sky & Telescope magazine. Most notable was a series called “Celestial Portraits”, which Astronomy ran for six years. In 46 articles he discussed the constellations, north and south, until he ran out of sky.

He has traveled to Australia, Chile and Namibia to study the southern sky and travels extensively in Arizona which he describes as “the greatest state in the US”

His other scientific interests include meteorology.

June 2016 Nightfall Newsletter is now available

The June 2016 edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download. Submissions for next month’s issue can be sent to , our Nightfall editor.

Club Meeting Announcement for June 2016

The Huachuca Astronomy Club will hold their June meeting in the Library Commons Area, Cochise College Sierra Vista campus on June 17, 2016 at 7 PM. Our speaker will be Stephanie Sallum, a fourth year astronomy graduate student at the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory. The meeting is FREE and open to the public.

Steph is interested in how high contrast imaging can contribute to our understanding of planet formation. Her thesis work has been using the novel imaging technique of non-redundant masking to search for and image accreting planets in transition disk clearings. Before coming to the Steward Observatory, she did undergraduate work at MIT in the Planetary Astronomy Lab studying Pluto’s atmosphere. When she is not doing astronomy she is usually out rock climbing.

Her talk will be entitled “Imaging Protoplanets: Observing Transition Disks Using Non-Redundant Masking”
Continue reading→

May 2016 Nightfall Newsletter is now available

The May 2016 edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download. Submissions for next month’s issue can be sent to , our Nightfall editor.

Club Meeting Announcement for May 2016

The next meeting of the Huachuca Astronomy Club will be held on Friday, May 20, at 7 pm in the Student Union community room of Cochise College.

Due to unforseen circumstances the scheduled speakers are unable to attend the meeting. Instead club member, and NASA Solar System Ambassador, Ted Forte will talk about upcoming NASA missions.

Transit of Mercury

On May 9th, 2016 the planet Mercury will pass directly between the Earth and the Sun. Because of the inclined orbits of Mercury and Earth, this event does not happen very often. The transit is in progress at sunrise (about 5:30 AM) and is over at 11:42AM MST.

The Patterson Observatory will be open at 7AM to allow members of the Huachuca Astronomy Club and visitors to view the transit safely through specially designed solar telescopes.

The event is weather dependent, but is free and open to the public.

The Patterson Observatory is located on the University of Arizona South campus, 1140 N. Colombo Ave., Sierra Vista, AZ. Signs will be placed at the intersection of Charleston Rd and Colombo Ave., and along the route, to direct visitors to the observatory.

Safe Solar Viewing Event

The Huachuca Astronomy Club will have telescopes set up for solar viewing at the Sierra Vista Farmers’ Market in Veterans Memorial Park on Thursday April 21st from 10 AM to 2 PM.

There will be several telescopes capability of showing our closest star like you have never seen it before. There will also be club members on hand to answer questions about the universe, NASA space missions, and to show some space rocks on loan from the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona.