This meeting is cancelled due to weather – Elections will be held in January and “Show and Tell” will be booked for another time in the future.
NOVAC Members,
Our next meeting will be Sunday Evening, December 8, 7:00 pm with an equipment “show and tell” event with NOVAC members bringing their astronomy equipment for others to see.  You will be able to talk with the equipment owners about how and why they use what they have for observing.  We will meet in Room 163,  Research Hall, George Mason University. Check the web page, http://www.novac.com/meetings/, if you need directions and details.
We are looking for members to bring their equipment like last year. Â Email webmaster@novac.com (and the list for that matter) to let us know what you are planning on bringing.
Also, bring along whatever you use to power your equipment (unless it is your automobile!) so that attendees can see the creative ways folks get power to their scopes and mounts and accessories.
If you are setting up equipment to show, please try to arrive between 6:15 and 6:45 to setup your things.
We will also have light refreshments in the spirit of making this a social event to honor all of our volunteers that served NOVAC so well during the past year.
We will elect officers for 2014 at our December NOVAC Meeting. Â Candidate nominations have been received for each position. Â If you wish to run for one of the officer or trustee positions, please self-nominate by emailing your desire to do so at this email address: Â elections@novac.com
We look forward to you coming to attend this fun NOVAC meeting!
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Details about NOVAC meetings can be found at http://www.novac.com/meetings/ – including information about the club’s informal pre-meeting dinners.
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NOVAC’s Byron Bergert Image Processing Group will hold its (Almost) Autumnal Equinox Processing Party on Saturday September 6 from 1-5pm at the Thomas Jefferson Library in Falls Church, on Route 50 just inside the beltway. Same agenda as last time: none. Just bring yourself, your data, a laptop for processing, and/or your questions about imaging. Come when you like, leave when you like. We’ll hang out as long as we have patience for, process images, and talk about imaging.
A suggestion from some folks who were there last time: if anyone would like to bring a projector for a laptop, that could stimulate spontaneous demonstrations! (PixInsight, anyone?) Hope to see you all then.
Kevin
The Hole in the Trees Skybox: http://www.pbase.com/skybox
Details about NOVAC meetings can be found at http://www.novac.com/meetings/ – including information about the club’s informal pre-meeting dinners.
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Details about NOVAC meetings can be found at http://www.novac.com/meetings/ – including information about the club’s informal pre-meeting dinners.
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Details about NOVAC meetings can be found at http://www.novac.com/meetings/ – including information about the club’s informal pre-meeting dinners.
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NOVAC’s Byron Bergert Imaging Group continues to defy expectations by, well, continuing! Our Pre-Thanksgiving Processing Party will be held Saturday November 22 from 10am to 2pm at the Patrick Henry Library in Vienna. We’ll be talking about imaging and processing images, so bring your laptop, your data, or just your questions. And in a radical departure from precedent (meaning the first two meetings), we’ll have an actual presentation: our very own Robert Whisler will give a presentation on guiding for astrophotography. So participate in the making of history and join us. Don’t be intimidated – none of us know what we’re doing either!
Please note the change in time and location. The Patrick Henry Library is on Maple Avenue in Vienna, about a mile east of Nutley Street and two miles west of Tysons Corner. The meeting room is on the right as you come in the door. Recommendation: bring an extension cord and a power strip, if you can. There are only so many outlets, and we don’t want to all huddle against the walls! I hope to see you there.
We will also have light refreshments before the meeting (around 6:30 or so) to recognize all of the volunteers that served NOVAC so well during the past year.
We will elect officers for 2015 at the December meeting. Candidate nominations have been received for each position (president, VP, secretary, treasurer, three two-year trustee terms, one one-year trustee term). It’s not too late to get into the race, though; if you want to run for one of the officer or trustee positions, please self-nominate by emailing a statement of your desire to run to elections@novac.com. It’s also possible to nominate another willing volunteer; we do ask, however, that you obtain advance permission from the person(s) you want to nominate before doing so.
We look forward to seeing you Sunday evening!
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NOVAC’s Byron Bergert Imaging Group will hold its Pre-Groundhog Day Image Processing Party on Saturday January 31 from 10am to 2pm at the Patrick Henry Library in Vienna. We’ll be in the meeting room, first door on the right as you come in the main door.
This time around we’ll have an addition to our normal routine of talking about imaging and processing our data. I’ll demonstrate how I processed a recent deep sky image, showing how I use Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop to stack the data and process it. To make the most of this, I’ll post the data online (hopefully tonight), so that other imagers can try their hand at processing the data as well. At the get-together on Jan 31, we can look at different ways of processing the same data, and compare results. I’m hoping that one of the PixInsight users in the club will take a crack at this so that we can compare the different workflows. This walkthrough will require a projector! If you can bring one, please let me know.
I hope to see you there.
Kevin Quin
Tentatively, we’re hoping to hold this on 23 May from 10:00-1:00, in a meeting room at the Loudoun County Public Library on Hay Road in Ashburn, VA. This is of course the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but given availability of meeting space, it was the first option we’ve been able to find for a while that doesn’t conflict with Astronomy Day on the 16th, so we’re going to go ahead and scheduling it.
There’s not typically a really structured agenda; an important part of this is informal discussion. As a starting point for this session, however, Beth will be talking about solar imaging and processing techniques that she’s used for images she has sent out over the past few weeks to this list. Kevin Quin also may do an imaging processing walkthrough with PixInsight, unless another member has some imaging data they’d like to try and do a processing walkthrough with.
We’ve had a few of our past attendees indicate that they can make it, but newcomers are always welcome as well. This is really a low-intensity group; our aim is to make it really painless to join or contribute. If you have some astrophotography data you want some help processing, or something you’d like to show, or an imaging question you’d like to discuss, feel free to bring it up at the meeting–that’s what this is all about.