Northern Sydney Astronomical Society

NAG – 27th July : PowerPoint Presentation

sydneystargazers — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:14:52 +0000

The PowerPoint presentation that was going to be shown tonight at the New Astronomers Group has now been uploaded to the website. Unfortunately technical issues resulted in the short presentation not been shown at the NAG tonight, however you can now download the file and view it on your own computer.

If you do not have PowerPoint on your computer , you can download a free PowerPoint Viewer off the Internet which will allow you to view the file.

The PowerPoint presentation contains screenshots showing a number of objects that you can see from Sydney for the month of August. The screenshots were taken of the night sky as it should appear around 9pm for the next few week or so.

The presentation also includes a sky chart for August 2010 whixh is available from the Sydney Observatory website. Each month you can download the chart for the current month from the observatory and print it out for use in the field.

To download the PowerPoint Presentation file, click on the following link.

NAG Presentation 27th July 2010

NAG meeting this Tuesday the 27th

bobsastro — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:44:31 +0000

The New Astron0mers Group will meet this Tuesday the 27th at 7:30 at St. Ignatius. The weather is a bit iffy, so the planned outdoor demonstration of DSLR astrophotography may have to be done inside! Roy Jordan will have his usual presentation on whats to see this August.

July General Meeting Tuesday the 20th

bobsastro — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 07:39:37 +0000

The NSAS July GM will be Tuesday the 20th at 7:30, St. Ignatius. The speaker is our own Bob Roeth, who will speak about the growth of the Copernican view of the universe.

Observing/Sausage Sizzle this Sat

bobsastro — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:46:34 +0000

After a poll of members, and a final weather check, we’ve decided to have a combined Observing Night/Sausage Sizzle this Saturday the 17th, at North Turramurra GC. Someone will be there from about 4:30 onwards, and if you are a member and haven’t advised Bob, please do so he can get the sausage count right! There is some possibility of Observing (with sausages) Friday night, but there could be a problem with support, so watch this space. This Saturday should be a great one, just a partial Moon, and lots of interesting things to see around Scorpio, and Mars, Saturn, and Venus all visible early. Rug up, it’s supposed to be cold! As usual, visitors are welcome, but bring your own sausages……

Video taken by Peter of June’s Partial Lunar Eclipse

sydneystargazers — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:28:00 +0000

In case people have missed it, one of our members Peter Nosworthy has uploaded a very professional looking video he took on the night of the partial lunar eclipse in June.

It is very well done and I recommend it highly to everyone to have a look at it. The video shows Peter preparing for the eclipse as well as capturing the eclipse with his telescope setup.

You can view the video on our site by looking at the bottom of the following link.

http://nsas.org.au/2010/06/23/partial-lunar-eclipse-june-26/

Thanks to Peter for the great video he has uploaded for us to see. It really captured the event nicely.

Observing for July

bobsastro — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:14:04 +0000

The nominated observing nights are the Fridays 9 and 16th, with the following Saturdays as backup for bad weather. If you are on the Observers list, you will get an email and/or SMS on the afternoon of the day to confirm whether Observing is on or off. If you are not on the list, check this website around 4 PM to confirm whether Observing is on or off.

NSAS Events for July

bobsastro — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:46:49 +0000

We start out July at NSAS with the Theory Group on Tuesday the 13th, 7:30. The lectures from Alex Filippenko’s “Understanding the Universe” are: “On the Shoulders of Giants”, and “Surveying Space and Time”. On Tuesday the 20th, 7:30, the July General Meeting will take place. Our speaker this month is Bob Roeth, NSAS Vice-president, who will speak on “Kepler: from Aristotle to Copernicus”. Bob, as some of you will know, is an excellent speaker. The New Astronomers Group has re-formed after a break, and this m0nth will meet on Tuesday the 27th, 7:30, with a program related to astrophotography, but anyone with a scope needing help, please bring it along. As usual, all meetings are open to visitors. Contact NSAS via email or mobile phone for more details.

Partial Lunar Eclipse : June 26

sydneystargazers — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:57:55 +0000

A partial eclipse, during which the Moon will take on a reddish glow, will be visible from Australia on 26th June 2010.

The eclipse will begin at 8:16pm on the east coast of Australia and will cover half the Moon at 9:39pm before the shadow begins to withdraw. The eclipse will finish about 11pm Sydney time.

NAG – 22nd June : Powerpoint Presentation

sydneystargazers — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:11:53 +0000

Tonight was a pretty good night for NAG with a good turnout of members.

I am adding tonight’s powerpoint presentation to this post for you to download and view at your leisure.

Some of the points reviewed tonight:

:- A technique of using barlow lenses and extension tubes to increase magnification and improve your view of objects with a better eye relief.

:- Brief coverage of the Personal Solar Telescope by Coronada which allows you to view features of the Sun such as prominences , filaments, spicules and of course sunspots…….. without costing you an arm and a leg.

:- View of the Milky Way using an H-alpha filter

:- A sample of objects you can see in the skies over Sydney in the next 4 weeks.

:-Covering the June 3rd fireball seen on Jupiter as well as the reason for the Southern Belt disappearing .

:- Attaching digital cameras to your telescope using adapters……. including iPhone Adapters

Click on the link to download the Powerpoint Presentation NAG Presentation June 22

New Astronomers Group – 22nd June

sydneystargazers — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:38:35 +0000

We are hoping to have an observing session on the night…… however the weather forecast for tomorrow is not looking good. But there are some signs the weather may improve but this will not be known until Tuesday morning’s forecasts. We will update the website if observing will be held on Tuesday night.

If the NAG observing session is cancelled, we will have an alternate program in place.

Program is as the following.

1. Bring in your telescopes if you need help with resolving any issues or want to learn how to use them better. Bring them in even if the observing session is on .

2. A trick you can use with barlow lenses to improve your view of the night sky. See the rings of Saturn with a 32mm lens and experience good eye relief.

3. Demonstration of connecting digital cameras to telescopes.

4. How to observe the Sun safely and see images like this without spending a fortune

Viewing the Sun without spending a fortune (Click to Enlarge)

5. We look at some of the interesting objects to see over Sydney in the next 4 weeks

6. We look at the current changes in Jupiter

7. Our Observing sessions for the next 4 weeks.

8. Question and Answer Section. This is where members and visitors can ask questions or make suggestions on anything astronomy or club related.