The entries for the first RASC Astrosketchers' Contest have now been received, and they are of stellar quality!

The judging period runs from now till 2012 March 18 inclusive. For details visit the site.

The RASC Historical Committee is looking for help in preparing a detailed finding aid for the RASC Archives.

Here's how it came to be, in the words of Regina Centre President, Alden Foraie:

When discussing how to kick off the fall observing season combined with a public-observing session, Regina Centre Secretary, Shane Ludtke, mentioned that the Regina Symphony Orchestra (RSO) was having its season-opening concert in a few weeks with a show entitled “Out Of This World” that would end with Holst’s symphony, The Planets.

The Chris Graham Robotic Telescope

May 2008

by Craig Breckenridge
Vancouver Centre CGRT Coordinator

Back in early 2005, an individual approached some of the executive of Vancouver Centre to see if there would be any interest in participating in a remote-telescope project. Needless to say, Council thought this would be an excellent project to bring the ability to work in new technologies to our membership. The initial planning meetings with Chris Graham, the equipment owner, and the interested Vancouver Centre members were held and an agreement in principle was worked out; Chris would provide the equipment and most of the software, and the RASCVC would provide some setup expertise, operation labour, and processing experience. It was a match that would evolve over time with both sides learning a great deal about remote-telescope operation.

Check out the CAP Journal -  leading up to the International Year of Astronomy IYA 2009 www.capjournal.org Thanks to Peter Broughton for bringing this to our attention!

Today, the International Dark-Sky Association announce the 2011 award winners. Jennifer West of Winnipeg Centre was one of the awardees in the category "Student Award" under the Dark-Sky Defender banner. Go here for more information: darksky.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=443

To my colleagues at The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada,

I wish to express my sincere appreciation of your participation in National Science and Technology Week (NSTW) 2009. Together, we made this year's NSTW a tremendous success. With over 200 organizations celebrating science and technology in a diverse variety of ways, we nearly tripled the number of participating organizations over last year.

The GA 2010 open forum and panel discussion,

"BOLDLY NAVIGATING WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE:

the future of the RASC in the 21st century"

is now a radio programme on Starizona's Let's Talk Stars, hosted by David & Wendee Levy (http://www.letstalkstars.com/).

It's high summer, the season of star parties, and the chance to show the public the Summer Triangle brightly set in the Milky Way, the radiants of outstanding meteor displays, and brilliant planetary conjunctions with your GLPs. With a little care we can all insure that the public remembers the celestial sights, and not GLP operator ineptitude leading to memorable but unplanned law enforcement interventions at star parties. The GLP Committee has prepared a poster to remind Society members of best practice and inform the public about GLP safety.

Roland Deschene with support from MAP, Education, Outreach, National Executive Director Deborah, as well as our new President Mary Lou have collaborated on outreach pamphlets for the lunar event.

In the final edits for our first Lunar International event are near completion. This is an initial project and the documents will continue to develop over time with feedback from other Centres and based on feedback from our outreach events.