Starry Nights @ SFU: Autumnal Equinox 2009

We held a star party just days following the Autumnal Equinox, on a relatively warm Friday evening, with about 85 guests in attendance.

As with all "Starry Nights @ SFU" events, this evening counted towards the attendance at four SFU star parties which earns a free telescope for families whose children have also attended an SFU astronomy workshop!

At this star party we presented telescopes to five "workshop" families who attended their fourth SFU star parties this night - look to the right for pictures of a telescope presentation ceremony that was held for these dedicated families! - the Thiessens, the Angs, the Reimers, the Finbergs, the Fengs, and the Yen/Hanson family!

I would like to thank the volunteers who brought out telescopes and made this star night possible: Wayne Lyons, Leigh Cummings, Ron Jerome, Preet Johal and, as is so often the case, Gwen Eadie (President of the SFU Student Astronomy Club), and Aaron Springford (who took the pictures of our happy new scope owners!).

If you took some pictures at this star party, or at any of our recent events, and would like to share these on this web site, please email them to me: trottier@sfu.ca.

Tonight we observed some signature objects of all skies, including the great globular cluster in Hercules (Messier 13), the Ring Nebula in Lyrae (M57), and the goregous double star Albireo in Cygnus. Jupiter was on very prominent display this evening, having passed opposition (closest approach) to the Earth just over one month ago, on August 14.

Once again, I would like to note that many of the volunteers who gave their time to make this evening a success are members of the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC). The RASC-Vancouver Centre has been an integral part of SFU astronomy outreach events over the past year (full disclosure: in 2009 I served as Secretary to the Centre). If these kinds of astronomy events are your thing, then I urge you to attend a monthly meeting at the RASC-Vancouver Centre (held on the 2nd Thursday of each month), and see what the Centre has to offer. I think you might find that membership in the Centre truly does have its privileges, including the pleasure of sharing experiences with about 300 fellow astronomy nuts, and the opportunity to borrow telescopes from the Centre's collection.

Starry Nights @ SFU: Blogs & Pics

Autumnal Equinox Star Party, Friday September 25 2009!

Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007