Six intrepid members traveled to Howell Woods for a night of viewing and imaging on Thursday, May 30. Favorite objects, and these are just a few, were Saturn, M16,M51,M81-82, M57, M65-66, and a number of globular clusters.

Although attendance at the May Imaging Meeting was light (as often happens this time of year), but everyone still had an enjoyable and interesting time.

On Tuesday evening, May 14th, there was an impromptu observing session at the club’s Big Woods site.  There were only two members present, Greg Bradburn and Michael Keefe, but that is enough to have a productive evening.

Greg started out with some imaging of Saturn and then moved over the take some images of the Markarian Chain.  For Mike, this was “first light” for his new (to him) Celestron CPC 1100 telescope.  

April 26, 2013 – RAC General Meeting – Officer for the Meeting:  Ian Hewitt

RAC was privileged to bring in Rod Mollise from Alabama for tonight’s meeting.  Rod is now a contributing editor for Sky & Telescope Magazine.  He has recently completed a big project:  observing 2500 deep-sky objects cataloged by William and Carolina Herschel.  Rod began his discussion by giving the group a history lesson on the Herschel’s.  Wilhelm and Lina (William and Caroline) were born in Hannover Germany in the early1700s.  They emigrated to England.  William was initially a musician then later an astronomer.  William is most famous for discovering Uranus with a six inch telescope on March 13, 1781.  Both William and Caroline worked on an extensive sky survey from England.  William was the observer and Caroline cataloged the objects found.  With her own telescope Caroline discovered eight comets.  William constructed many telescopes including his famous 40 foot telescope.  During their sweeps, the Herschels cataloged 2377 objects.  Some of the original 2500 were duplicates and non-existent objects.

A small group of diehards observers, some new members and guests made it out to Big Woods on Friday, April 12. Despite the pollen, which is a problem when observing in April, everyone had a pretty good time. It was pretty clear for the most part, but some small clouds rolled in later in the evening. Everyone stayed out until around midnight.

The 2013 NC Science Festival started on Friday, April 5th with a "Statewide Star Party," where groups all over NC held public observing on the same day. After weeks of planning, gloom, and rain (from an unusually cool Spring) we were rewarded with an awesome sky, an excellent Museum program, and enthusiastic crowds for these festive and exciting observing events. In fact, before dark we had lines at each of the telescopes at all the events.

We would like to recognize the support of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the City of Raleigh's Annie Wilkerson Nature Preserve in helping to make these events so successful! These events mark a significant milestone for RAC as we solely staffed two independent observing sessions and our members supported two more events. Our thanks goes out to all the RAC members who participated to share the night sky with the public