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WELCOME TO THE HOME OF CAAC
This site is the official home of the Charlotte Amateur Astronomers Club,
which was established in 1954. The club invites all those with an interest
in astronomy to come to a meeting and learn more about the club and what
it offers its members - including one of the finest observatories in the
southeast!
NEXT MEETING - JULY 17th, 2009 at
7:00pm
The Almost Complete History of the Telescope
The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the “Invention” of the telescope.
Gayle Riggsbee will present again a program on the history of the telescope that he gave to the club in 2001. The program covers the events from the first working of glass in the 13th century through the first spyglasses, and traces the evolution of the art of telescope making to the present day.
Some of the questions that will be answered during the program are:
Who invented the telescope?
What did Galileo discover with his spyglass?
Who invented binoculars?
Who was the first to see Saturn’s rings?
What is the cure for chromatic aberration?
What were the first telescope mirrors made from?
Who made the first glass telescope mirrors?
What is the “old” Astronomy?
How big can telescopes get?
August (21st) Meeting Program:
Rick Boozer
Rick Boozer has been an amateur astronomer since age 8. He is currently a member of Foothills Astronomical Society in Tryon, NC and a former president of that organization. His Bachelor of Science degree is in geology was obtained from the University of South Carolina in Columbia in 1976. He retired from a successful career as a software engineer in 2006 to pursue his lifelong dream of being an astrophysicist. Presently, he is in his last semester of obtaining a Master of Astronomy in Astrophysics and plans to begin work on his PhD in Astrophysics in 2010. His most recently completed project that was related to his Masters involved research into the variability of QSOs in radio waves, visible light, UV and X-rays. He has a public service educational science website: www.singularsci.com. He conducts his own independent research from his home in Greer, SC via robotic telescopes located at Apache Point, New Mexico and Western Australia.
Mr. Boozer will give a presentation of some of his remote astrophotography. A few of the images in the presentation are of southern hemisphere objects that most experienced observers may have never seen or even heard of.
MEETING LOCATION
Our meetings are held at 7:00pm on the 3rd
Friday of each month (except for
December) at the Masonic Temple, 500 North Sharon Amity Road. Click
here for a map.
There is an informal dutch treat dinner before the meeting. See your newsletter
for details.
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