The "Cabin Fever" Star Party is on!

It has been a long winter, so get out of the house and be sure to join us tonight at 6 PM to enjoy the evening skies!   We'll stay out as long as we can withstand the cold at the Jaycee's ball field on North Grove street in Mora!  The Orion nebula will be sure to delight as well as many galaxies in Leo and Virgo.

See you there!

Jim

Vasaloppet Here We Come!

Each year in Mora there is a cross country ski race called the Vasaloppet and it is occasionally used as an olympic qualifier, so for our small community, it is a very big deal.  This year is the 39th anniversary and ECMAC has offered to provide some celestial ambiance for the "friendship tour", a short 2K welcome event at 7:00PM on Friday the 11th of February.  We will set up at the downtown library park and hope to show people great views of the first quarter moon and anything else we can pull in with the street lights around us.

Here's hoping we have decent temperatures and clear skies!
Jim

January 25th Meeting on Celestial Targets is a Bullseye!

With another fun-filled educational eperience under our belts, the ECMAC bi-monthly meeting covered a very interesting topic: Objects for Observation, presented by club president Jim Williams.  Eleven different categories of celestial phenomena suitable for different levels of observation were presented.  These covered everything from naked-eye astronomy incorporating meteor Showers, auroral displays, the Moon, planets, and stars, to telescopic and binocular observation of double stars, open clusters, globular clusters, planetary nebulae, diffuse nebulae, supernova remnants, and galaxies.  Each subject was briefly discussed and some great questions were asked!  We look forward to getting more "in-depth" with each of these individual topics later on. 

Also discussed, was the amazing photo shown below of the partial solar eclipse with a transiting International Space Station present as well.  This was truly a remarkable accomplishment by French astrophotographer Thierry Legault.

 

Come join us at our next bi-monthly meeting onTuesday, March 22nd at 7:00PM.

Space rocks land in Mora

ECMAC has been busy pursuing our mission of spreading the science of Astronomy, and during that journey we have been fortunate enough to ally our club with Nasa's Night Sky Network.  One of the wonderful benefits to this partnership is the quarterly educational tool-kits that are sent to those clubs that fulfill the requirements set forth in the guidelines.   Well, ECMAC has earned its first tool-kit already and we enjoyed a great evening meeting exploring the Space Rock kit.  First, I must say that the thoughtfulness that went into assembling this kit is tremendous, the activities are great for all ages, and the quality is first-rate.

The central presentation tonight was to run the club through the Space rock/ Earth rock game.  Our junior astronomers took to this with ravenous delight and were eager to examine every sample with the magnifying glass and magnet.  Our members gained great knowledge on the origins of asteroids, different classes of meteorites, methods for differentiating different rocks, and terrific hands-on experience with actual rocks from space!  Thanks Night Sky Network!!  This was truly  a great time for all ages.

While the adult members conducted the meeting, the junior members busied themselves playing Space Bingo (and to hear them calling out the astro-terms  was a hoot!) .  To close the meeting we were extremely proud to present three of our members with Certificates of achievement for completing the First Observation Club, a certificate requiring independent hands-on demonstration of the use of a telescope to locate several different classes of celestial objects.

Another fun-filled meeting is under our belts, and we are pleased to announce the upcoming events:
Dec 20 lunar eclipse independent observation and astrophotography session
Jan 8, 2011  "Hardy Minnesotans" star party at the Jaycee ball field at 5:30 PM,
Jan 25, 2011 Public meeting featuring more great Night Sky Network educational materials

Please join us if you can attend!!

Club meeting tonight!

Please join us at James M Williams' dental office tonight from 7-8:30 for the bi-monthly ECMAC meeting.  We will be presenting observation awards to our young astronomers and learning about space rocks and the Universe.

We hope to see you there!

Saturday Dec 4th Party Cancelled

Sorry folks, but the weather isn't going to be cooperating for this one, so we will have to cancel.  Be sure to join us on Dec 14th for our bi-monthly meeting.  We will have some fun topics to share!

Jim

Weather looks questionable for Saturday Star Party

Hi all!  We currently have a star party scheduled for 5:00pm at the Jaycee Ball Field on N. Grove in Mora, MN.  Right now, however, the forecast is calling for a 30% chance of snow and mostly cloudy skies.  If that is accurate and it doesn't look like it will clear up, I will post to the blog, Twitter, and send out an email by 3:00pm so that you have time to make other plans for the evening.

Here's hoping the forecast is wrong!
Jim