February 2013

  • Pilot Mountain Observation – March 2, 2013

    Hi FAS people: The weather gods are tough. Two weather sites (including the Sky Clock) predict it will turn clear tomorrow night; two others say it will be cloudy. The smart money will be on the latter, but I’m not too smart, so (for the moment) our public observation at Pilot Mountain is on. If…

  • Sci Works – Scout Events

    Attention All Club Members: At the last meeting, I mentioned Scout events at SciWorks for Tiger, Cub, and Webelo scouts. The dates are March 1, 8, and 15. Activities will run from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, but there will not be continuous activities for the whole four hours (you will have some down time).…

  • Public Viewing /Yadkin County Park Feb 21st

    Paul Wooten to all A big Thank You to the members who came out tonight to the Yadkin County Park and helped with the star party for the Yadkinville Elementary School students. Reports have attendance at 150-200 students and parents. We only got to see the moon for a while but the kids and parents were…

  • Chelyabinsk Meteor (02.15.13) – informational weblinks

    From Jeff Poplin – NASA revises (upward) preliminary estimates: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130215.html UMSF forum pages about the event: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5524&st=285 Lots of good comments from knowledgeable folks… Interesting link used by one poster to estimate impact effects: http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ Phil Plait’s update: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/russian_meteorite_fragment_may_have_fallen_in_frozen_lake.html Meteosat-9 images showing contrail shadow on ground! First pics I’ve seen of possible fragments. http://74.mvd.ru/news/item/845855/ (need…

  • Club Meeting Info Feb 26th, 2013

    Discussion leader/Presenter: Bruce Mellin Comet Conversations We are fortunate this year to be expecting the passage of two interesting comets. Both have hyperbolic orbits and are approaching the Sun for the first time. Predicting the brightness of even known periodic comets is well known to be a tricky business. Professional and amateur astronomers alike will…

  • 1913 Great Meteor Procession

    On 2/8/2013 11:16 PM David Morgan wrote: This is wild: 1913 Great Meteor Procession I like the temporary orbit hypothesis. Indeed! Extraordinary event. What I find peculiar is the reports of the bright, star-like object seen during the middle of the display. “Several report that near the middle of the great procession was a fine…

  • Club Observation tonight (members only)

    Hi FAS people: Members only outing: It looks like the skies are promising for Saturday night’s cub observation at Bullington. The forecast calls for clear skies and cold temperatures (well, you can’t have everything!). I will be out of town this weekend, so I can’t be there, but I hope some of you are able…

  • ScienceCasts: A Naked-Eye Comet in March 2013

    Comet Panstarr Coming in March 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlenAvqLCI

  • Occultation Alert

    Attention Occultation Alert  How many of us have seen a star occulted by an asteroid? It is kind of like watching a solar eclipse but in miniature, it is the passing of an asteroid in front of a star. This one occurs in the constelation of Auriga. On Friday Feb. 22, 2013 at 02:25UT (09:25pm…