Asteroid (288478) Fahlman

Gregory Gaylord Fahlman (b. 1944) has served since 2003 as the Director General of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada. He has made extensive contributions to studies of globular star clusters using groundand space-based telescopes.

Orbit type: Main Belt

Reference: MPC 78272

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My goal - to view as many Messier objects as I can

Hello,

I am a gentleman in my 50's who loves astronomy. I have done stargazing with a 6" Newtonian reflector Celestron over the past 10 years. Recently my dear wife bought me a wonderful Christmas present, a 12" Dobsonian Meade Lightbridge Telescope. I also just joined the RASC, Edmonton Centre. I have set myself a goal of viewing all the Messier objects that can be seen from the Edmonton, Alberta region.

I have 2 questions:

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Meeting Reports 1869

Taken from Mr. Elvins' scrap and pasted in [to the minute book] by C.A. Chant - 1914. (Given to C.A.C. May 27, 19 Spring 1914)

This is the transcription of the contents of the PDF file linked to at the bottom of this page.

[July 14, 1869.


SCIENTIFIC OPINION



TORONTO ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

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Visual and photographic observations of Near Earth Asteroid 433 Eros

Has anyone else been viewing or photographing Eros during its current close approach? I found it in Leo the other night using 7x50 binoculars in less-than-perfect skies. Over three hours, I could definitely detect motion against the stars. I could see mag 4.5 stars unaided and mag 9 stars in the binos, so the mag 8.5 asteroid was just visible.

Note to software users: make sure you update the orbital elements if making your own finder charts!

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My Top Astronomical Event of 2011: Astronomy . . . A Rebirth

Anyone who’s met me knows this to be true: I don’t shut up. I’ve seen or heard the words “too chatty,” “talks too much” and “chatterbox” more times than I can count. Worst still is when friends or family ask me about the universe. But observing? That has always been a lone activity for me.

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G.T. Kingston Letter

Magnetic Observatory
Toronto
Dec 1, 1868

Clare Esq
Secretary Tr
of Proposed Astronomical Society

Sir
I have to acknowledge your circular inviting me to a meeting to be held at the Mechanics Institute for the organising of an Astronomical Society.

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My Best Astronomy Experience of 2011

For the second year in a row, I visited two provincial parks on consecutive days. On June 29, I drove from my home in Melville, Saskatchewan, the 3.5 hours to Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, where I met with one of the park interpreters. She and I set up my telescopes on the lawn in front of the concession -- always a good place, since it's on the direct line from the beach to the ice cream! I estimate that 150 people viewed our Sun that day through both H-alpha and white light filters.

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My Top Astronomical Experience of 2011, 50 Galaxies within 10° of the North Celestial Pole

Galaxies within 10° of the North Celestial Pole - Aug 25 - Sept 5, 2011 Over the end of August new Moon period, along with working on my Herschel 2500 project I went on a trek to the North Pole. On a popular internet forum a bit of a joke challenge went out to observe 50 galaxies within 10 degrees of the pole. This peeked my curiosity. I fired up Megastar and put in a few limits and came up with a chart of the pole with all galaxies that my 12.5" scope should be able to pick up.

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My Top Astronomical Experience of 2011

Ever since I was young and got my first telescope I’ve always wanted to see the sun. Of course you can’t actually look at the sun, at least not directly. My first telescope was something that might have been featured on the “Cheap Astronomy” podcast—a three inch Newtonian but it came with a projection screen eyepiece attachment. I tried in vain to see sunspots and I guess, since then, that’s been my obsession. I’ve wanted to see the sun and learn as much as I can about it.

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Best Astronomical Experience of 2011

This year began with an effort to get into astrophotography while fully appreciating the limitations of m my Celestron  Advanced GoTo mount. There was no way I would be able to use my 9.25 tube from my observatory deep in suburban London, Ontario.  I was able to find another RASC member who had a larger mount but wanted more image scale for his own astrophotoraphy endeavours. I came  away from this trade with a nice Stellarvue 102mm ED refractor. It just loves riding on the mount.

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