Telescopes Demystified: An AAC Hands-On Event
Saturday, August 9th
10:00am - 1:00pm
The Village at Gainesville - Tower Club Ballroom
8000 NW 27th Blvd Gainesville, Florida 32606
Click here for directions
Join the Alachua Astronomy Club for a hands-on event designed for beginners, casual observers, and anyone curious about telescopes and astronomy!
All members are asked to come share their knowledge with each other and our guests.
Schedule of Events:
10:00 AM - Meet and Greet
Explore the venue and gather together to catch up with members and guests
10:30 AM – Introduction to Telescopes Talk
Dr. Richard Hennig gives a beginner-friendly presentation on the various types of observing tools and their uses.
11:15 AM – Hands-On Activities Open
Equipment Gallery: Explore a variety of telescopes and astronomy gear.
Equipment Maintenance Station: Bring your own telescope for help with using it, cleaning optics, and collimation.
Solar Observing: Safely view the Sun through smart and visual telescopes.
Astrophotography Gallery: See stunning night sky images captured by AAC members.
12:00 PM - Members Lunch
AAC will be organizing a luncheon for those attending and interested. This will be something easy for those working on their telescopes
Please register below and fill out the form to indicate lunch interest and equipment maintenance station sign up.
Please Sign Up Here
This event is free and open to the public. Great for families, seniors, students, and anyone interested in exploring the universe!
Members, please register and bring anyone who may be interested. All are welcome!
Agenda:
7:00 - 7:15 General Meeting & Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Short topic presentation by a club member
7:30 - 7:45 Refreshment break
7:45 - Public Presentation
Speaker: Noah Rashkind
Title: The Art & Science of Astrophotography
Abstract:
Astrophotography offers a unique fusion of science, art, and personal exploration. What began as a simple curiosity with basic gear and minimal processing skills evolved into a passion for capturing the night sky with increasingly complex imaging and post-processing techniques. Along the way, this pursuit transformed into a business called ARTstronomy®, and ultimately into college-level instruction in astrophotography. In this talk, I’ll share my personal journey from beginner to educator, exploring how technological advances have transformed both my own practice and the broader field of astrophotography. We’ll also discuss practical techniques for capturing and producing deep sky images using PixInsight and SIRIL.
About the Speaker:
Noah H. Rashkind is a partner at Lott & Fischer, PL, where he specializes in intellectual property law, including patents, trademarks, and copyrights. He earned dual undergraduate degrees from the University of Florida in Astronomy (B.Sc., Physics minor) and Political Science (B.A.), followed by a J.D. from Stetson University College of Law. He also holds an M.Sc. in Astronomy form the University of Florida and is a Registered Patent Attorney admitted to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
In addition to his legal practice, Noah serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Florida, where he teaches The Art and Science of Astrophotography, an interdisciplinary course he developed in collaboration with Astronomy Department Chair Elizabeth Lada. A lifelong amateur astronomer, he founded ARTstronomy® (https://ARTstronomy.Pro), a fine-art astrophotography business offering curated prints of deep sky, solar, and planetary objects.
Noah previously served as an Assistant Public Defender, where he gained significant litigation experience. He integrates his background in litigation and scientific training into both his intellectual property practice and his teaching.
Based in Gainesville, Florida, Noah balances a rigorous professional life with passions for astrophotography, ultrarunning, and education. He remains active in public outreach, higher education, and the arts.
Exclusively for AAC members!
AAC has organized a dark sky star party at one of the darkest skies on the east coast!
Sunset is 8:08 pm.
Arrive at least one hour before sunset for setup and to get familiar with the observing field before dark.
Please review the Star Party etiquette for Chiefland. http://shorturl.at/cgkMO
You need to register to attend and receive directions to observing field.
Event Alerts - Members please register to attend. A "GO" or "NO GO" will be emailed to registrants by noon the day of the event. Your need to be registered for me to send you updates! Also, please double check weather conditions before heading out to Chiefland. Summertime weather in Florida changes fast!
The Far Out Journal Club invites you to join us for an online conversation with TV/Film Producer James Tralie
From the outer limits of the Milky Way, the Alachua Astronomy Club has started the Far Out Journal Club. Produced by Rich Russin and hosted by past president Terry Smiljanich, the goal is to have a personal, in-depth visit with the authors, artists, musicians, curators, and other cultural icons who bring us the vast world of cultural science and science fiction.
Get ready for a special evening as we host James Tralie for an online conversation about his career as a TV/Film producer, animator, and live TV host at NASA.
James Tralie
TV/Film Producer, Live TV Host at NASA
About our Guest:
James Tralie is a TV/film producer, animator, and live TV host at NASA. He leads scripting, production, direction, editing, animation, and distribution of TV shows, feature films, podcasts, AR/VR/360 media, outreach materials, environment art/concepts, and digital content for NASA’s flagship platforms - engaging over 200 million followers with his content. He directs live TV coverage for spacecraft launches and major scientific discoveries as a host in front of the camera and as a producer, reaching audiences of over 10 million live viewers.
His latest productions have aired on PBS, Prime Video, Delta Airlines in-flight Entertainment, Hulu, and at film festivals around the world. He is an Emmy Winner and 10-time Webby Award Winner.
His most recent feature length film about the James Webb Space Telescope, entitled “Cosmic Dawn,” was acquired by Giant Pictures for distribution on Prime Video, Tribeca Films, Drafthouse Films, and at over 150 planetariums, museums, and educational institutions around the world.
He is one of the top digital artists in the world and has exhibited worldwide including in Times Square New York, at the Met Gala, on the Sphere in Las Vegas, at Shibuya Crossing in Japan, in Abu Dhabi, Art Basel Miami, and in Montreal. His client list includes top companies such as Nissan, Porsche, Apple, Adobe, NVIDIA, HP, Dell, NBA, Taco Bell, Fox, Facebook, Bombay Sapphire, Marriott, Warner Music, Zara, Paramount, Martha Stewart, and more.
He scaled his personal social media accounts to over 700K followers with over 5 million monthly impressions. He is a member of the Television Academy and graduate of Princeton University, where he majored in Geosciences with minors in French and Environmental Studies. He is a Scholastic Art & Writing Gold Key winner, YoungArts Alumnus, was an official selection for the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival, and was invited to the White House to meet President Obama as part of the White House Student Film Festival.
Just Released:
Cosmic Dawn is the incredible true story of the James Webb Space Telescope – humanity’s largest and most powerful space telescope – on a mission to unveil the early universe, against all odds.
To watch, click link below:
Cosmic Dawn (NASA+ Original Documentary)
To further enhance your enjoyment of this episode, The Far Out Journal Club recommends you watch the movie Cosmic Dawn prior to the session.
Join Zoom Meeting:
Http://bit.ly/FarOutJournalClub
https://sfcollege.zoom.us/j/91733146162?pwd=Ib7KD0Sd1UKU8cbeUR0u7bxbOzmSOj.1
Speaker: Dr. Zachary Slepian - UF
Title: Dark Energy
Originally from Fairfield, Connecticut, an early interest in philosophy led to his current interest in cosmology. He attended public high school, received a BA summa cum laude from Princeton (2011), working with J. Richard Gott, III on his senior thesis, an MSt in philosophy of physics at Oxford (2012), and a PhD in Astrophysics (2016) from Harvard, advised by Daniel J. Eisenstein. During his PhD, he focused on Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) in the 2-point and 3-point correlation function (3PCF) of galaxies, constraining a possible systematic sourced by high-redshift baryon-dark matter relative velocities using the 3PCF. This entailed developing a transformatively fast 3PCF algorithm, enabling the first high-significance detection of BAO in the 3PCF and a measurement of the cosmic distance scale six billion years ago to percent precision. Post-PhD, he spent one year as a Chamberlain Fellow and one year as an Einstein Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where highlights included an implementation of the 3PCF algorithm capable of computing the 3PCF for the entire observable Universe in 20-hours on NERSC’s Cori supercomputer, application of the 3PCF to MHD turbulence, and novel analytic solutions for the Friedmann equation in the presence of neutrinos or warm dark matter.
Research Interests:
Dark energy, dark matter, structure formation, large surveys, analytic methods, star formation. His current research follows three broad paths: creating theoretical models for large-scale structure, designing fast algorithms to measure it, and applying them to datasets such as BOSS, eBOSS, and DESI. Cutting across these areas are a strong attraction to analytic methods and excitement about effective use of high-performance computing.
Speaker: Anna Metke - Space Resource Technologies
Title: Regolith Production
TBD
7:00 - 7:15 General Meeting & Announcements 7:15 - 7:30 Members Corner:
Speaker: James Albury, Planetarium Director and host of the YouTube Series "The Sky Above Us"
Topic: TBD
Join James Albury, host of the YouTube astronomy program "The Sky Above Us" (TheSkyAboveUs.org), and 2011-2019 co-host of the PBS TV Show "Star Gazers", as he takes you on a personally guided tour of our night sky, using our GOTO Chronos Space Simulator. Florida Skies is our weekly star show that familiarizes you with some of the popular constellations visible from sunset to sunrise, as well as the stories behind them. We'll also show you how and where in the sky you can find the brightest planets.
