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Februry, 2010:

The February 2010 business meeting will be held at Keene State College at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 12th, with observing immediately following at the club's Sullivan Observatory. The Februry observing session will be held beginning at 7 pm on Saturday, the 13th, at the Observatory. All members and interested non-members are invited.

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Welcome to the Keene Amateur Astronomers Club!

What We Do...

The Keene Amateur Astronomers Club is a group of people whose goal is the enhancement of Amateur Astronomy by fellowship, sharing knowledge and enjoyment of the hobby. The KAA Club provides outreach programs when asked and holds monthly viewing sessions at our own observatory. Regular monthly club meetings are held at the Keene State college. Anyone interested is invited to attend. Our membership is open to students, parents, beginners, backyard amateurs and also experienced professionals. And we provide opportunities for our members to grow in one of the greatest hobbies in this world or any other!

Founded in 1957, our club has a long and distinguished history. We are also members of the Astronomical League. And we actively participate in the annual Stellafane Convention which is consistently rated as one of America’s Top Star Parties!

Februry, 2010:

The February 2010 business meeting will be held at Keene State College at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 12th, with observing immediately following at the club's Sullivan Observatory. The Februry observing session will be held beginning at 7 pm on Saturday, the 13th, at the Observatory. All members and interested non-members are invited.

If you need directions, contact Bob Taylor, our club Secretary, by telephone at 802.257.9358 or by email. See you there!

"KAA Site of the Month"


We will be featuring a different website periodically for your interest. If you have a site you really like and think it has wide interest, please send it along to us. The current featured site is: The Mag-7 Star Atlas Project. The Mag-7 Star Atlas plots stars down to Magnitude 7.25, with double / multiple stars indicated by a thin horizontal bar. Plotted DSO's (Deep Sky Objects) include all objects on the Messier list, the RASC's finest NGC list, and the Herschell 400 list --- more than 550 DSO's in total.

"Activities at The KAA Observatory"

In the photo on the left below, Chris Chase, of West Swanzey, stands next to a 12 and one half inch Newtonian reflector telescope designed and built by the astronomy club. He was replacing the finder scope on the telescope at the club's Sullivan observatory. In the foreground is a 9 and one quarter inch Schmidt-Cassegrain reflector telescope. On the right, clearing trees and opening up the view at the Sullivan Observatory, from left, astronomy club vice-president Phinie Faux, club president Jim Fox, and club webmaster Jim Faux. The observatory is behind them.[Both photos were taken by Michael Moore of the Keene Sentinel Staff]



Keene Public Library and Keene Amateur Astronomy Club Team Up To Offer Month Long Lecture Series


This March, the Keene Public Library will host a four part Astronomy Lecture Series. Interested community members are invited to attend any or all of the lectures that will be held each Thursday in March in the library’s auditorium. The series is planned in conjunction with the Keene Amateur Astronomy Club. Last year, the library and the Keene Astronomy Club worked together to bring the traveling exhibit “Visions of the Universe” to the region. The exhibit and programming series was so successful that both groups decided to continue the partnerships. “Hopefully, we can make this February Astronomy Series an annual event” said Gail Zachariah, Head of Youth and Community Services at the Keene Public Library.

This year, there are four very timely programs planned. The series kicks off on Thursday, February 4 with "Black Holes, Worm Holes and the 'Star Trek' Dilemma".
On February 11, the speaker Patrick Slane from The Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics brings together the Beatles and astronomy in his presentation "Because the World is Round".
On February 18, Professor Emeritus of Geography Vincent Malstrom explores Archaeoastronomy and the Mayan calendar in the presentation "Cycles of the Sun, Mysteries of the Moon".
Finally, on February 25, architect and astronomer Claudio Veliz discusses recent discoveries in "Life in Our Time: The Search for Extraterrestrial Organisms on Mars and Europa".

The ISS

You can find the daily viewing times and tracks of the International Space Station by logging into NASA and plugging in your zip code.

The Current Background Image - Stephan's Quintet(HCG 92)

This is a Hubble picture of a clash among members of a galactic grouping called Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Pegasus. Stephan's Quintet is 290 million light-years (90 million parsecs) away. NGC 7320, superposed in the foreground, is 40 million light-years (12 million parsecs) away. This is one of first snapshots from the refurbished Hubble's 19-year-old telescope's new vision. A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars. This portrait of Stephan's Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Stephan's Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group. To view the current background image, click here.

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