Columbia Astronomy Club

UPDATE: More details about this meeting:

Hello Columbia Astronomers!
This is a reminder for our August Meeting which will take place on Saturday, August 17th. The meeting will take place at the Columbia Memorial Space Center (12400 Columbia Way, Downey, CA 90242). The doors will open at 6:45pm. The meeting will begin at 7pm and end at 9:00pm. Our club President, John Unkovich will also be setting up his solar scope before the meeting at approximately 5:00pm so feel free to come early!
In addition to a Sky Report and a presentation from our club Vice President Ricardo Padilla on comets we also have a guest lecturer this month: Jim Lafferty, solar imager and author of "Imaging our Sun"
For the first part of this 90 minute presentation, Jim will walk us through the basics of observing and imaging our sun with both hydrogen alpha and white light filtered telescopes. We will discuss the solar features you can expect to see through the eyepiece and some basic info on the best ways to image the sun. The most common equipment and capture software will also be discussed. Following a short break, Jim will then review his image processing techniques, discussing software programs like Photoshop CS, AviStack, Registax, and AutoStakkert.
Jim has been an avid astronomer and imager for over 35 years. He currently observes and images from his backyard observatory in Redlands, California. His work has appeared in magazines such as Sky and Telescope, Astronomy, and The Astronomer, and has had his images published in secondary school physics textbooks. Jim’s images have been featured by a multitude of websites, including Yahoo News, Space.com, NASA APOD, and Spaceweather.com. He has given solar talks at a number of venues across the country, including NEAF’s NEAIC, OPT’s SCAE, Palomar Observatory, and Texas Star Party’s Imaging Symposium. Jim is the author & publisher of the book, Imaging Our Sun.
There will also be an after-meeting star party on Saturday so bring your telescopes if you'd like to join in!
Hope to see you all there!

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The Columbia Memorial Space Center is welcoming aspiring astronomers of all ages to join us for our monthly Astronomy Club meetings. These meetings will include a fascinating program about the night sky and a chance for members and guests to get together and talk about all things astronomy. These meetings will also provide information on how to pick the proper telescope, how to use a telescope, how to build a telescope and how to identify different celestial objects.

FREE!!

Doors open at 6:45pm and meeting starts at 7pm.
Meetings are held on the third Saturday each month from 7-9pm.

For details about this month's specific talk and more information:
http://www.columbiaspacescience.org/news-events/event/columbia-astronomers-meeting/

For any questions, please email ColumbiaAstronomers@gmail.com