I started last month’s message with “it’s finally spring.” Then why am I writing this message with frost warnings out? Welcome to the Midwest, eh? I think I may owe the club an apology. I didn’t do a very good job managing the April meeting. Mike Lockwood did a great talk about his mirror-making business …
Author: jimw
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2022! I don’t know about you but I’m tired of all the uncertainty. I long for the times when we can meet in person and actually talk to each other and have people looking through our telescopes. Will that be this year? It seems to be a moving target. …
CUAS member Paul Smith has graciously offered to lend his astrophotography eVscope for use by CUAS members. Guy Hampel and Jim Wehmer tested it last month and found it to be very easy to use. This scope costs over $3000 so it might be a good idea for Paul to show you how it works before …
Astrophotography eVscope is available for CUAS member useRead More »
Join us for the club meeting on December 9. Traditionally, this has been a social gathering with a potluck. Just like last year, we won’t be sharing food, but I hope we can share other fun stuff. Please consider a topic you want to discuss, gathering some photos, showing off astronomical equipment, or recommending some …
We have rescheduled the November club meeting for November 18. I will be at a conference the week before, so the dome is unavailable. At this time, the club doesn’t have a nominee for president at the November election. Dave Leake checked the by-laws, and they state that “If an office remains vacant after an …
The members of the Champaign–Urbana Astronomical Society mourn the pass-ing of Doug Rokke. In the last few years, Doug has been a very active member of our club, providing significant material assistance for our award-winning floats at the Inde-pendence Day parades, giving talks at club meetings, and as-sisting with public outreach events. He clearly loved …
The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn apparently caught the attention of a lot of people! Many were drawn to it as another cool astronomical event, since it was the closest we’ve been able to see the two largest planets in almost 800 years. (The 1623 conjunction was even closer to the setting Sun than …
December 2020 I hope the club’s election process went well for you. Please provide feedback to us about your experience so can improve the setup for future elections. Thank you all for supporting me to be president for the next year. I hope we will have enough vaccinations available to hold in-person meetings and public …
Our club has received the donation of a new Solar telescope by Daystar . There are two narrow Band Filters. One for prominence and one for the Cromosphere . Both filters are electrically temperature regulated using a rechargeable battery pack. In addition there is a Orion solar starseeker tracking altitude azimuth mount. It is so …