All

Today marks the centenary the Great Meteor Procession (GMP), the most spectacular meteor procession on record. The meteors crossed a quarter of the Earth's circumference, and many of the observers whose impressions contributed to the fundamental scientific report on the event were Canadian. The iconic image of the GMP was painted by RASC member and professional artist Gustav Hahn (1866-1962). To mark the centenary of the event NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) features the century-old reproduction of Hahn's painting from the RASC Archives.

The registration and conference website is now open at /events/. The 2013 General Assembly will be held in Thunder Bay, Ontario as the Thunder Bay Centre welcomes the Society as we join them to help celebrate their 25th anniversary.

Highlights include:

The Information Technology Committee is pleased to announce that the RASC is now running on a new and improved server infrastructure which is supporting the www.rasc.ca website, our email domain and mailing lists. The new server boasts improved processing, speed and memory and also includes the ability for the Society to mirror our operational server and create test environments for development.

Many thanks to Past President Dave Lane for spearheading the acquisition and installation of the new server along witih Craig Levine's support as the Server Steward.

While there's little chance of a collison, astronomers around the world will be watching the skies tonight as asteroid Apophis (which caused a mild panic in 2004 after predictions of its possible impact) passes within 15 million kilometres of the Earth.