All ready for the 15 Calamus Library students to show up at 10AM….
Meetings get better and better… thanx especially to the presentations made by Paul Saeger and Samuel Santiago…. Paul’s was so relevant to what all of us experience not only when starting into this hobby, but tend to experience at the start of each season… humorous because its true… right? 🙂 Sam’s talk was really a plethora of info too… it stretched beyond the show and tell of an electronic focuser or two but into what focusing means… problems encountered when focusing, focusing aides, types of manual focusers and types of electronic focusers…. pros and cons of electronic focusers, and 4 or 5 different electronic focusers were there on display… of course this was followed by another great Q&A session… We plan on putting the (electronic)FOCUSERS presentation on the web site followed by your asking questions and providing your experiences… it’ll be a pretty cool blog/forum topic! Cecil Ward brought in his new guide system including a very nice Svbony doublet, a highly adjustable mounting system, and a nice ZWO camera… all very practical, nice quality, and very versatile. We then had a great discussion on the Observatory Relocation with report outs on Building Specs and Design, Equipment Requirements, and Benefits… […]
Thank you so very much to those attending the 2018 Quad Cities Astronomical Society’s Eastern Iowa Star Party! Friday seemed a bit sketchy until David Levy chatted with those attendees present and Grant Harkness and Alan Sheidler stepped up and gave talks on the Wilton School Observatory Project and the 2019 NCRAL respectively… we then topped the night off with watching a movie called Deep Impact…. one which David Levy was conferred on… and had the midnight chili at 8:00 pm.….. we had 24 in attendance that day/night. Saturday was an incredible day…. Drs. Sipiera, Anderson and Levy gave incredibly interesting, education al and entertaining presentations followed by great Q&A sessions. We gave away 16 door prizes between talks… and had raffle winners for the second place…Televue 1.25″ 2X Barlow, and the grand prize, the 102mm Explore Scientific Carbon Fiber Triplet. We moved midnight stew up to about 7:00 PM and while we ate watched the movie, Armageddon…. the evening cleared a bit and we spent the night doing imaging and viewing… hanging out with David Levy as he continued his search for comets… Jennifer and Dave Anderson hung out with us and checked out the various views thru the various […]
On March 14th, 2018, the QCAS will host a tour of their Jens Wendt Observatory to the Iowa Association of Naturalists. This will be an open house style event for the Naturalists. If all goes according to plan, guests will be arriving at the observatory, located at Sherman Park about 6 PM on March 14th. They are planning a soup supper up at the house, all who are helping out with the observatory are welcome to join. There will be 2-3 varieties of soup including a vegetarian option and fresh baked bread. Reservations are appreciated. They are also planning an evening hike and a social campfire with music if the weather is nice. QCAS members are invited for it all. This will also allow people to filter over to the observatory so there is less need of a line at the scope. We hope that attendees can see some of the planets and maybe easier to see/find nebulae. Guests never forget their first view through a big telescope! If it is clouded over, we can tour the facility anyway. March 1st is the early registration deadline so we should have a pretty good idea of attendance for this trip by […]