Where: Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
When: 7 pm, Saturday, 7 December
Rather than have a main speaker, we will have
Suggestions welcome!
A few MAG members have a conflict on the second Saturday of December.
Thus the meeting will be on December 7.
Where: 475 Bluff Road, Avonport, N.S.
When: Saturday, Nov 09 at 7 pm AST
Speaker #1: Nathan Gray
Topic: My Supernova Discovery
Nathan Gray is a family member of the RASC through his father Paul
Gray. Nathan has been looking to the sky since he was a young boy
attending summer star parties at camping weekends with his parents.
He has attended the Mount Carleton Star Party twice, the Dam Star
Party near Fredericton 6 times, Starfest in Ontario twice, Nova East
three times, and one General Assembly of the RASC. He enjoys looking
at the Milky Way and constellations in the night sky, and more
recently began supernova hunting. Having seen his sister search for
and find a supernova, Nathan has wanted to do the same, with his
sights set on her world age record for discovering a supernova. Last
week (October 30th), after several months of searching, Nathan found
his first supernova at the age of 10 years, 9 days, beating his
sister by more than 30 days.
Speaker #2: Roy Bishop
Topic: Comet ISON
Comet ISON is presently near the orbit of Venus and diving toward the
Sun. No one knows if ISON, a Sun-grazer, will survive its perihelion
passage on November 28, and if it does survive, how bright it will
appear in our dawn sky in early December. By our next meeting
(December 14) we will know whether “The Great Comet of 2013” hype was
justified. Roy will describe ISON’s path through the Solar System,
and where, when, and how to view it.
NOTE: Bring a flashlight to the meeting! Here is why:
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,
a gravel path to the meeting begins beside my garage. No need to walk
on the Bluff Road, but you will need a flashlight to follow the path.
(The solar lights along the path do not last long at this time of year!)
Saturday, October 19, 7 p.m.
Speaker: Paul Gray
Topic: Dark Nebulae: Observing and Imaging
For over 12 years Paul Gray has observed and recently began imaging
countless dark nebulae. Looking for dark nebulae is about as
disconcerting as fumbling for the light switch in a dark guest room!
Paul will share his knowledge on how to observe and image these dark
silhouettes in the night sky.
Paul has been a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
for 26 years, having joined as a youth. In that time he has been a
member of the Halifax and New Brunswick Centres. He has served as a
member of council in both centres in a number of roles, including
President of the New Brunswick Centre. Now he serves as a member of
the Board of Directors of the national RASC.
For several years in Halifax he was a volunteer speaker at the
Halifax Planetarium. Within the RASC he has been a strong supporter
of public outreach and education. While a member of the New Brunswick
Centre he was a driving force behind the creation of the Mt. Carleton
and Kouchibouguac Dark Sky Preserves, the first in the Atlantic
provinces.
He enjoys spending time under the night sky with his telescopes, both
visually looking for faint fuzzies as well as dark nebulae, and
imaging the sky. His other passion has been hunting for supernovae,
distant, massive stars exploding at the end of their lives. This last
venture has rubbed off on his children, with Nathan and Kathryn both
now searching, Kathryn having found her first in late 2010.
Meeting Place: Avonport, 475 Bluff Road
When you arrive for the MAG meeting:
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: Because Nova East was this month, we will not have a meeting in September
The next meeting will be 19th of October, the third Saturday, because Thanksgiving is on the preceding weekend.
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.