Founded in 1955, Houston Astronomical Society is an active community of enthusiastic amateur and professional astronomers with over 60 years of history in the Houston area. Through education and outreach, our programs promote science literacy and astronomy awareness. We meet via Zoom the first Friday of each month for the General Membership Meeting and the first Thursday of the month for the Novice Meeting. Membership has a variety of benefits, including access to a secure dark site west of Houston, a telescope loaner program, and much more. Joining is simple; you can sign up online, by mail or in person at a monthly meeting.
Hello all,
We have finally completed the new website and taken it live. Please feel free to renew your membership or sign up for a new membership in HAS. We have a few lingering pieces of functionality (dark site certification and bookings, for example) which we still need to wrap up. Please let us know if you encounter any issues or have any questions or feedback. Thank you very much for your patience and cooperation.
Regards,
Joe Khalaf
HAS President
UPDATE: What a great turnout! What great fun! Let’s do this again!
Saturday, Jan 14. Sunset 5:48 pm. Astro dark 7:12 pm. Moonrise 12:53 am (Sunday).
BYOP. Bring your own picnic: food to grill, or a picnic basket, or takeout, and a chair. I’ll be at the picnic area around 2:30pm to open up—come by and say hi! We’ll start shutting down around 4:30pm so we can finish setting up on the observing field by sunset.
BINO SIG. Bring your binoculars and chair and meet at the lawn sign. I’ll have printed sky maps, red flashlights, and clip boards for us to use.
Observatory. Comet C/2022 E3 is an early Sunday morning object. If the weather stays clear, I will have the C14 trained on it. Members, contact hasbooking@astronomyhouston.org to reserve a bunk in the family, women’s, or men’s bunkhouse.
Rene Gedaly
Field Trip & Observing
While winter in SE Texas can bring cold weather, it can be ideal for astronomy. Nights are much longer. This makes it possible to get several hours of observing in at the HAS dark site and getting safely back home very possible. And when the temperature is lower, the sky many times will be dryer and hence more transparent.
Novice Chairperson Chris Morrisette will lead us on a tour of the winter night sky. He will give us tips on preparing for winter weather conditions. In addition, Chris will show us how to find our way around the beauty of the winter Milky Way and introduce us to some of the Not to be Missed celestial objects we should have on our observing lists!
Our Speaker: Chris Morrisette is HAS Novice Chairperson and an active member of the Houston Astronomical Society, North Houston Astronomy Club, and the Fort Bend Astronomy Clubs. He is also a member of the University of Texas Astronomy Department Board of Visitors. On clear Saturday nights, you may find him volunteering at the George Observatory engaging with visitor and sharing his love of the night with them, while totally having fun operating the telescopes there, or you may find him at the HAS dark site gaining experience with astrophotography.
a.k.a. AstroBackyard
Abstract – Trevor Jones, from AstroBackyard, will describe the start-to-finish process of photographing nebulae and galaxies from your own backyard. From equipment options to image processing, get a better understanding of how amateur astrophotographers capture the cosmos.
Our Speaker – Trevor Jones, also known as AstroBackyard, is an experienced amateur astrophotographer and content creator who shares his years of experience and knowledge with others to help improve their skills in astrophotography.
Before AstroBackyard, Trevor spent many years as a graphic designer, marketer and creative director and has since used these skills to create a brand around the hobby of astrophotography. Trevor is known for his beginner level approach to explaining astrophotography and has been involved in the greater community as a photography contest judge, public speaker and dark-sky advocate.
Trevor is from Niagara, Ontario Canada and enjoys camping with his family and running. For more information visit astrobackyard.com or follow AstroBackyard Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @AstroBackyard.
Rene Gedaly, Field Trip & Observing
If the weather cooperates, let’s do a flash star party and bring your own picnic. If it’s a go, I’ll send a notice to all members via the usual channels: email, Facebook group, Discord, and this website.
You bring your own picnic: food to grill, or a picnic basket, or takeout from Columbus, and a chair. Just be aware that the picnic area will close by sunset. I’ll be at the picnic area around 2:30 to open things up.
Observing is your choice. However, if you’re interested in learning to view some great objects using binoculars, I’ll have the BINO SIG sign set up on the field. Just bring your binoculars and chair. I’ll have printed sky maps, pencil, red flashlights, and clip boards for us to use.
by Jim King
BARLOW LENS: This type of lens which you install in your telescope’s focuser (and then put an eyepiece into) increases the effective focal length of a telescope and magnifies its image. A 2x Barlow doubles the focal length and the eyepiece will provide twice the power. If you choose the eyepieces carefully, adding a Barlow can give you a much wider range of magnifications.
BINOCULARS: High-quality binoculars should be part of every observer’s kit. For magnification, choose 7x, 8x or 10x. The front lenses should be at least 50 mm across. Smaller ones don’t collect enough light. If your budget can stand it, check into Image Stabilized (Canon, Fuginon) binoculars to avoid having to rely on the availability of a tripod. I have the Canon 10X30s image stabilized which are a true “grab and go” accessory for astronomy, bird-watching, etc.
CIRCUMPOLAR STAR: This term describes a star that always lies above an observer’s day or season. At the equator, no star is circumpolar. At the North or South Pole, all stars are circumpolar. At any other latitude, a star whose declination is greater than 90 degrees minus the observer’s latitude will be circumpolar.
by Don Selle
Exposure in daylight photography is a pretty cut and dried subject. You need to set the exposure time required to fully illuminate the scene you are shooting while achieving a specific effect or look in your image.
by Will Sager
If you own a telescope, you probably looked first at a refractor (Figure 1). It is the quintessential telescope and if you see a telescope in a cartoon, it is probably one of these. This is first telescope invented, often attributed to Galileo Galilei in 1609 although opticians in the Netherlands probably made similar instruments a few years before. But Galileo pointed his telescope skyward, extensively documenting his observations, and became the first telescopic astronomer. Galileo’s telescope used an objective lens to focus light on an eyepiece lens, which is the basic description of this type of scope. There are many different refractor telescopes, so a beginner can get confused without some background. The goal here is to provide the reader with some details to help understand refractor telescopes and their designs.
Figure 1. A refractor telescope (aka “yard cannon”). (source: Opticalmechanics.com)
by Loyd Overcash
Exposure was 135 minutes taken in 5 minute subs with my 14.5 RC and the ZWO-2600mc camera in Bin 3 Gain 300
Dawn: 05:44 A.M.
Sunrise: 07:03 A.M.
Sunset: 06:10 P.M.
End Twilight: 07:30 P.M.
Learn how to read it the clear sky chart.