The December meeting of the Hamilton Chapter of the RASC was a great way to see everybody before the Christmas holidays.
During the meeting, it was suggested that if anybody had some extra time on any of the 3 Saturdays leading up to Christmas that they come down to Westfield Heritage Village and help out with the “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” events, where members can help visitors experience the night sky, just as they did in the Victorian era. If you are interested in helping out, please contact Mark Pickett.
It was also suggested that a perfect gift to give someone this year would be the gift of Membership in RASC. It is a great way to get someone who has always been a little curious about astronomy a chance to have access to more information, resources and social opportunities. If you are interested, please see the call-out on the RASC homepage.
The Armchair Astronomy group will be meeting on Monday, December 7 at the Observatory at 8pm. This month’s relaxed, entertaining discussion will start with the topic of asteroids. Come by and join the lively conversation!
Andy Blanchard provided an update on AstroCATS 2016. This year, AstroCATS is introducing an Astrophotography course with some of the world’s top astrophotographers assisting! There will be 2 days of hands-on workshops in 3 different streams (beginner, intermediate and advanced). Contact Andy if you are interested in more information.
The highlight of the night though, was Cathy McWatters presentation on using anaglyphs to get a 3D view of different objects. Starting with the Sun, Cathy worked her way through the Solar System out to a couple of star clusters and a galaxy. Some of the images were jaw-dropping with their level of detail and the perspective it provided on the features. If you are interested in seeing the type of images you missed, or if you want to see more of them, here are some websites with a few thousand images of Mars (Smithsonian, HiRISE, Pathfinder, and Spirit and Opportunity). For those wanting something closer to home, here is the Moon from Apollo missions 16 and 17 and the LRO