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The History of the Richmond Astronomical Society

webmaster — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:30:34 +0000

The RAS startedin 1949 October as a group of local astronomers wanting to set up a group. The society, with a great deal of cooperative effort and some ingenious designs, constructed a 7-inch refracting telescope in the Bon Air vicinity of the Richmond area; this telescope is still usable today despite light pollution. The club has hosted a number of events, especially Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies (VAAS) meetings, and has worked closely with the Science Museum of Virginia to sponsor such things as regular and special sky watches and Astronomy Day programs.

Tonight’s meeting topic

webmaster — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:09:07 +0000

Tonight Ken and Betty Wilson will give a talk on the Great China Eclipse of 2009. This eclipse is a member of Saros 136; a Saros is a period of 18 years 10 1/3 days in which eclipses repeat. The previous eclipse of this Saros was on 1991 July 11, and I was in Mexico to photograph the eclipse. I will bring memoirs of that eclipse along. Anyone went to Africa in 1973 or Indonesia in 1955? The next one is in the Middle East in 2027. I also note that today, August 11, was the date an eclipse occurred in Europe in 1999.

Stargazing at Radford

webmaster — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:14:00 +0000

I was at Radford, Virginia at SUUSI on 2009 July 23. One of the things I did at SUUSI was “Stargazing”, where we went to a site near Mountain Lake. The skies were beautiful there, with mostly clear skies and some lightning in the far south. We saw M57 (ring nebula), M13 (great Hercules cluster), M81, M82, M51 (galaxies), Lagoon Nebula, double cluster in Perseus, M31 (Andromeda galaxy) and the planet Jupiter with three of its moons clustered together. Several shooting stars occurred, and the person with the telescope saw an ISS pass just before most of us arrived at the site.