Program Meeting

Topic: A Brief Introduction to Radio Astronomy and Some Powerful, Affordable Radio Telescopes You Can Put in Your Backyard without Irritating Your Family or Neighbors! Speaker: Curt Kinghorn The branch of Astronomy called Radio Astronomy uses radio waves instead of visible light to look at the sky. Interestingly, most of what we know about the universe comes from Radio Astronomy. This presentation gives a brief introduction to Radio…

Topic: Open Mic Member Night to Share Totality Eclipse Adventures! Send your photos, (solar and otherwise), to [email protected] by Sunday, April 14th to have them included in the program slides. Looking forward to seeing everyone’s photos and hearing your stories! The meeting will be held via Zoom. See https://sdaa.org/program-meeting/.

Topic: Totality Eclipse Prep with discussions led by SDAA in-house experts The meeting will be held in-person at Mission Trails Regional Park. See https://sdaa.org/program-meeting/.

Topic: Women in Astronomy, Credit Where Credit is Due Speaker: Sharon Flemings The February 21 program meeting speaker (via Zoom) is Sharon Flemings from the TVA “Chapter” in Florida. Her talk is on “Women in Astronomy, Credit Where Credit is Due.” Sharon is a Temecula Valley Astronomers (TVA) member currently living in St Augustine, Florida. She has been a visual astronomer since 2020 and an astroimager since 2023….

Topic: Gadget Night Bring your astronomy-related or imaging garage-built objects, tools, ideas, new hardware, software to share with SDAA on our traditional Gadget Night – only this year we will have a ZOOM option as well as in-person show and tell. This includes astro-images, views of your home or TDS observatories, videos of telescope equipment, software and neat techniques. This meeting will be in-person at the Mission Trails…

Speaker: Neil Farber Topic: Lunar Exploration: What We Did, What We Saw, What We Learned Many people are not aware of the extensive investigation, both manned and unmanned, that NASA conducted of our nearest neighbor, the Moon. This talk will explore the unmanned landers and orbiters of the 1950s and 1960s, the six manned landings of the Apollo program, and the orbiters of more recent years. We will…

Topic:  Fear and Loathing in the Heavens: The 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet Speaker: Richard J. Goodrich In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from the belief that comets were portents of doom; two centuries later, in 1910, as Halley’s Comet returned to perihelion, newspapers and magazines, religious leaders, misguided theorists, and shameless grifters managed to rekindle that fear. When astronomers announced that the earth would pass through the…

Topic: AISIG and imaging programs within SDAA Speaker: David Wood and others on AISIG Past SDAA president and manager of SDAA’s TARO Observatory, David Wood, is reinvigorating the imaging group within SDAA. He and others will give an introduction to this field that is becoming more accessible to members given advances in cameras and software. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldoRCqIjuLQ

Topic: Signs in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer’s Perspective on Religion and Science Speaker: Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad The talk is based on Dr. Ahmed’s book of the same name which reviews some of the scientific achievements of the golden era of Islamic civilization and some important achievements in astronomy. Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of European astronomy following the early medieval period. The book…