Saturday, June 8, 7 p.m.
Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Speakers:
Use the parking lot at #475, and if that is full, park at my home
next door (#465), not along the Bluff Road. If you do park next door,
there is a new, shorter route from your car to the meeting: a gravel
path that begins beside my garage. After dark, the path has lights
along it. No need to walk on the Bluff Road!
NOTE: This is our last meeting until September.
Time: Saturday, May 11, 7 p.m.
Place: Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
“What’s Up” :Larry Bogan
Speaker: Roy Bishop
Roy will omment on a variety of astronomy-related
images, including some new discoveries, the European Southern
Observatories in Chile, the continuing passage of Comet Panstarrs
through the inner Solar System, and a selection of recent images that
are simply unique and beautiful.
Reminder re parking: Use the parking lot at #475, and if that is
full, park at my home next door (#465), not along the Bluff Road and
not on the grass (which is soft this time of year).
If anyone needs directions to 475 Bluff Road, email Roy Bishop
RLB@eastlink.ca
Minas Astronomy Group — April meeting
Saturday, April 20, 7 p.m.
(delayed a week because of weather)
Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Topic: Rocks from the Sky
Small, Large — Good, Bad
Speaker: Roy Bishop
Earth itself is composed of rocks from the sky. Presently millions of such bodies are still in the sky, several tonnes of which land on Earth every day. Occasionally one of these is large enough to make headlines, such as the Chelyabinsk meteor this February. Large visitors to the inner Solar System that reach naked-eye visibility, such as Comet Panstarrs, also make the news every few years. The geologic record makes it virtually certain that some of the large objects still out there have Earth’s name on them. Whether or not we can prevent them from impacting Earth depends . . . .
t = This Saturday, March 9, 7 p.m.
R = Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Some background on our March speaker, the youngest speaker we have
had at MAG:
On January 2, 2011, Kathryn Aurora Gray discovered a supernova in a
distant galaxy. Kathryn found it on images taken by Dave Lane of
Halifax, as part of the supernova search program that Dave and Paul,
Kathryn’s father, have been pursuing for several years. Her discovery
made headlines because, at 10 years of age, she was the youngest
person ever to make such a discovery. That June, Starmus Festival, a
5-day celebration of astronomy and space flight, commemorating the
50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space, brought
astronomers, other scientists, and astronauts from around the world
to the Canary Islands. Kathryn was invited.
Following the hype around Kathryn’s discovery of SN2010lt she was
invited to participate in a number of events at Starmus. The most
exciting of all was an invitation to perform the official opening of
Starmus! In this presentation Kathryn will highlight some of her
amazing adventures in the Canary Islands where she and her parents
had a chance to meet many interesting people from astronomy, space
flight, music and art backgrounds that made Starmus the amazing event it
was.
Spacetime coordinates:
t = This Saturday, February 16, 7 p.m.
R = Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Topic: A Tour of the Heavens
Speaker: Roy Bishop
February’s presentation will be a selected sequence of astronomical
images in electronic form, assembled from various sources including
cameras on tripods, Earth-based telescopes, and instruments in space
including the Hubble Space Telescope. In addition to showing pretty
pictures, I shall describe the objects in the pictures — where they
are, what they are, how big they are, and their evolution.
Spacetime coordinates:
time = This Saturday, January 12, 7 p.m.
position = Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Topic: Comets, Collisions and Solar System Formation:
Some recent astronomical news and research
Speaker: Larry Bogan
Among other things, we will look at the expectations for comets in 2013,
a visualization of what the Andromeda Galaxy will look like in
billions of years, and a new theory of the formation of solar systems.
Our November meeting will be at 7pm AST on the 17th (the third Saturday).
Location: 475 Bluff Road, Avonport
Topic: “Hooked” on Astronomy
Speakers: Bruce & Melody Hamilton
From the arrival of one new “star” in our family to the many stars
on Messier’s list, there is a story to tell. We will unfold our
three year journey through hooked mats, building projects,
photographs and adventures….
The MAG meeting this month is on Saturday October 13
7pm – speaker Blair MacDonald
The first MAG meeting of the autumn will be delayed to the third Saturday, Sept 15th – 7 pm at Bishop meeting house in Avonport
Topic to be announced.
Note the Delay of one week for the meeting. It was not on the 9th.
Topic: Introduction to Astrophotography
Speaker: Blair MacDonald
When: Saturday June 16, 7pm
Location: Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
Blair spoke to Minas Astronomy Group 8 years ago, and has kindly
offered to do so again. He is an accomplished photographer of the
night sky, and has published many articles on the topic. He is a
veteran of countless hours spent in the cold and dark capturing
sparse streams of photons from distant galaxies, and more hours at a
computer screen processing the images. Blair is a very active member
of the RASC Halifax Centre, including chairing the Nova East Star
Party again this year (at Smiley’s Provincial Park, August 17 – 19).
Blair is bringing his telescope and camera equipment to demonstrate
it, and hopefully to do some astrophotography after his talk (once
the sky darkens toward 10 p.m.). Bring your camera to receive
pointers from Blair, and possibly to take some photos “piggy back”
using Blair’s telescope mount.