LVAAS General Meeting
Saturday August 20, 7 p.m. at Pulpit Rock
Rain Date Sunday August 21
Update on LVAAS Projects
Frank Lyter
Frank Lyter, Director of Pulpit Rock Observatories, is presenting an update on two projects he is leading for the society.
The presentation will be held at the society’s Pulpit Rock Observatory Site.
The first project presented will detail the installation of digital encoders and a controller to the society’s 17.5 inch Coulter Odyssey 2 Dobsonian Reflector “Push to” telescope located at Pulpit Rock Observatory Site. The addition allows users to push the telescope to navigate the night sky while monitoring the position wirelessly via the Sky Safari application on their phone or tablet. The project utilizes the open source DobsonianDSC application developed by Vladimir Atehortúa and made available via GNU General Public License.
The second project presented will be the installation of meteor detection cameras to the society’s South Mountain and Pulpit Rock Observatory Sites as well as at member’s homes. The project utilizes the international Global Meteor Network (https://globalmeteornetwork.org ) program which is a worldwide organization of amateur and professional astronomers alike, whose goal is to observe the night sky using inexpensive, low-light video cameras to calculate meteor trajectories in a coordinated manner. LVAAS society’s cameras are the first installations on our area of the United States and along with other installations across the globe allow for the tracking, determining the source, size and possible landfalls of meteors impacting the earth.
The meeting will be in-person only, outdoors at LVAAS' Pulpit Rock dark-sky observing site. Click here for directions. For members who do not have a key, the gate will be manned during a certain period TBA before the meeting starts.
Prospective new members who wish to attend the meeting should email membership@lvaas.org.
LVAAS Public Star Party
Saturday, September 3
6:00 p.m. - Planetarium Show for families with children aged 14 and under
7:00 p.m. - presentation TBA
8:00 p.m. - regular Planetarium Show
Continuous - Observatory tours and telescope viewing
620 B East Rock Road, Allentown