Latest News and Posts

  • Chelyabinsk Meteor (02.15.13) – informational weblinks

    From Jeff Poplin – NASA revises (upward) preliminary estimates: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/news/asteroid20130215.html UMSF forum pages about the event: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=5524&st=285 Lots of good comments from knowledgeable folks… Interesting link used by one poster to estimate impact effects: http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/ Phil Plait’s update: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/02/15/russian_meteorite_fragment_may_have_fallen_in_frozen_lake.html Meteosat-9 images showing contrail shadow on ground! First pics I’ve seen of possible fragments. http://74.mvd.ru/news/item/845855/ (need…

  • Club Meeting Info Feb 26th, 2013

    Discussion leader/Presenter: Bruce Mellin Comet Conversations We are fortunate this year to be expecting the passage of two interesting comets. Both have hyperbolic orbits and are approaching the Sun for the first time. Predicting the brightness of even known periodic comets is well known to be a tricky business. Professional and amateur astronomers alike will…

  • 1913 Great Meteor Procession

    On 2/8/2013 11:16 PM David Morgan wrote: This is wild: 1913 Great Meteor Procession I like the temporary orbit hypothesis. Indeed! Extraordinary event. What I find peculiar is the reports of the bright, star-like object seen during the middle of the display. “Several report that near the middle of the great procession was a fine…

  • Club Observation tonight (members only)

    Hi FAS people: Members only outing: It looks like the skies are promising for Saturday night’s cub observation at Bullington. The forecast calls for clear skies and cold temperatures (well, you can’t have everything!). I will be out of town this weekend, so I can’t be there, but I hope some of you are able…

  • ScienceCasts: A Naked-Eye Comet in March 2013

    Comet Panstarr Coming in March 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZlenAvqLCI

  • Occultation Alert

    Attention Occultation Alert  How many of us have seen a star occulted by an asteroid? It is kind of like watching a solar eclipse but in miniature, it is the passing of an asteroid in front of a star. This one occurs in the constelation of Auriga. On Friday Feb. 22, 2013 at 02:25UT (09:25pm…

  • The Young Astronomers Newsletter February 2013

    The Young Astronomers Newsletter Volume 21 Number 3 February 2013 By Art Gormley

  • Welcome to the new FAS Website

    Good morning all, Well we finally got the new site up and running. Hope you all enjoy it, there is still a lot of work to be done, but please start using and commenting. The comments are turned on for now, or you can send email to mailto:fas@fas37.org Thanks, The WebMasters

  • Mars 3-D Jan. 22, 2013 Meeting Links

    Mars 3-D links Links to current Mars missions: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ “Mars in 3-D: Images from the Viking Mission” (NASA movie, 1979) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubRHSg5daMs HiRISE Anaglyphs: “Explore Mars, One Giant Image at a Time” (2,899 images!!!) http://www.uahirise.org/ Explore Mars! – Spirit’s Journey (interactive web site) http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/explore/spirit/ Explore Mars! – Curiosity’s Journey (interactive web site) http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/explore/curiosity/