photo: Rich Richins, ASLC member

If you are new to the community, or a long time area resident with an interest in astronomy, please join us. Upcoming meetings and DSO parties are listed in the news Bulletin, and Calendar Page of this website. If you have questions about finding the location of a Star Party, please contact one of the officers for more information or send us an email.

Recorded Presentations
Audio Slide Shows (requires the use of QCShow Player)

Instructions on viewing lectures: If you are a first-time viewer, follow the links above and download the free QCShow Player. After you have installed the player, return here and click on the lecture of your choice.

August 22, 2003

Global Archeoastronomy

Richard Loose, High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility

My Microsoft Word Spell-Checker doesn't seem to think Archeoastronomy is a real word. Perhaps this is because Archeoastronomy is a relatively new discipline, certainly not much over 100 years old. Archeoastronomy considers astronomy in an archeological context. If archeologists don't have the luxury of written records, interpretations of art work or alignments of architectural features can give us some insights into the astronomical knowledge of ancient cultures. As Archeoastronomy becomes more accepted as a legitimate scientific study, more information is becoming available to the general public. Evidence of an ancient tradition of astronomical knowledge is present on all continents of the globe where people have lived.

September 24, 2004

Astrophotography Using Digital SLR Cameras

Dave Dockery, White Sands Missile Range

Dave will give a version of his excellent workshop covering the basics of astro-imaging using DSLR cameras including; mounting hardware, filters, compensation for poor H-Alpha response, focusing techniques, and a brief demonstration of Images Plus - image processing software designed for commercial digital camera astrophotographers. Dave presented this material at the White Sands Star Party where it was very well received.

June 24, 2005

Sharing the Night Sky: The Star Party Guide

John York, York Allergy Clinic, El Paso

Ever wanted a handy way to know what’s up between 4 am and astronomical twilight on a particular morning? Has anyone ever asked you where the astronauts landed when you were showing them the moon? And lastly, you’d like to cruise through a few lunar points of interest and observe some of those features you read about a while back in Sky and Telescope, but where did you put that issue? Well, John York of El Paso will be here in July to share a solution for these situations. John will have copies of his book, Sharing the Night Sky, for sale at the meeting.

July 22, 2005

Low-Cost Webcam Autoguiding

Steve Barkes, Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Interested in getting into Astrophotograhy? Looking for a cost effective way to autoguide your mount? Steve Barkes will be discussing the need for autoguiding and the use of low-cost web cameras to be used as autoguiders. Details will be provided on the common errors associated with astronomical mounts, how they can be measured and corrected using economical hardware and software.

September 23, 2005

New Results in Understanding on How Cataclysmic Variables are Made

Tom Harrison, Astronomy, New Mexico State University

Recent infrared spectroscopy has shown that normal cataclysmic variables do not follow the evolutionary history proposed by theorists. Strangely, cataclysmic variables with highly magnetic primaries do. There is no obvious explanation for this difference. I will talk about how normal stars (like the Sun) evolve, and how this evolution changes when you put a star in a binary system. Studying cataclysmic variables gives us insight into how lower-mass binary systems evolve. I will discuss extending this research to high mass binary systems, those that eventually evolve into systems containing neutron star of black hole primaries.

January 27, 2006

The Spaceport in Our Future
Auxiliary Movie: X Prize promotional movie

Joshua Neubert, The X Prize Foundation

"The Mission of the X PRIZE is to enable radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity." On October 4th, 2004, the X PRIZE captured world headlines when Mojave Aerospace led by Burt Rutan and Paul Allen built and flew the world’s first private spacecraft to the edge of space to win the $10 million ANSARI X PRIZE. Because of the dramatic nature of the achievement, the X PRIZE Foundation is now widely recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through the use of competitions.

Our Jan. 27rd meeting speaker will be Joshua Neubert from the Las Cruces office of the X-Prize Foundation. He will speak not only on their plans to keep the commercial space launch program going, but will also tell us what he knows about the Upham Space Port development, and how this may affect our favorite dark sky site.

April 16, 2006

Planets Around Other Stars

Heidi Hammel, Space Science Institute

This lecture is different from the standard ASLCNM lectures. It was a public lecture given to middle school children, sponsored by the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program, a program specificially designed to enthuse and excite young girls into considering careers in mathematics, science and engineering.

We are now embarking on a new series of Voyages of Discovery, reminiscent of Magellan, Cook and Darwin, but at a speed unparalleled in prior history. For this talk, Hammel created her slides in March 2006. At that time, there were 155 planets known to exist outside our solar system. By the time that she gave the talk in mid-April, that number had grown to 163. Now, at the time of this writing in mid-May, the number is 170. We are discovering new planets at a rate of three to six a month now.

But we've just begun. It's been estimated that contained within the 10 parsec (32.6 ly) sphere surrounding Earth that there should be 30,000 planets. Some of these planets will almost certainly harbor life, and their discovery will transform evolutionary biology — if for no other reason than we are certain to be surprised.

July 28, 2006

Supernova!

Bert Stevens, Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Everyone has heard about supernovas, but do you know what causes them? This month’s talk will discuss the supernova and how it comes at the end of the star’s life, generating one of the most cataclysmic explosions in the universe. We will explore what happens in the heart of a giant star just before it goes supernova. We will see how it impacts the solar system that circles it and the interstellar medium beyond. We’ll also look at the differences between Type I and Type II supernovae and see how the other kind of supernova occurs. Finally, we will see how amateur astronomers are discovering supernova in external galaxies by using automated search techniques.

August 25, 2006

Four Member-constructed Observatories

Jerry Gaber, Bob James, George Hatfield, Bill Stein,
Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Four new observatories have been built by members of the ASLC during the last year, and you must be impressed by the quality of what has been accomplished. The step-by-step construction of these four new observatories has been photographically documented and narrated by the club members. The quality of the observatories that these people have built is not only impressive, but the costs are lower than you might initially expect, although that reduction in cost comes at the expense of some significant labor.

September 22, 2006

CCD Astrophotography on a Budget:
Meade's DSI Cameras

Dave Dockery,
Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

It’s historically been expensive to get started in astronomical CCD imaging and this has kept many prospective astrophotographers from taking the plunge. However, recent advancements in sensors and passive cooling technology, coupled with reduced manufacturing costs have made it possible for a few companies to release truly affordable imaging systems geared toward the beginning CCD astrophotographer.

This workshop will introduce Meade’s new line of inexpensive astronomical CCD cameras. There will be discussion of the positive and negative aspects of the DSI design, a demonstration of the bundled software, including image acquisition and processing flow, and review of some of the world-class images these cameras are producing.

January 26, 2007

The Fine Art of Shaping a
Successful Stargazer

Nils Allen,
Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Nils has been especially proactive in educational outreach activities for the Society, running the "Beginners Corner" and "Telescope Clinics." In this talk, he outlines those points he emphasizes in guiding newbie astronomers towards becoming successful:

• What is their goal?
• Why should you help?
• Who are you helping?
• Find out the time you have to work with
• Communicate! Don't just do it for them
• Remember, every situation is unique

At the end of his talk, Nils also presents one of the short tutorials he gives his classes, "Light and the Optical Properties of Telescopes."

February 23, 2007

The Accelerating Universe and the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey Supernova Survey

Jon Holtzman, Astronomy, New Mexico State University

In the last decade, astronomers have accumulated data that indicates that the expansion of the Universe has been accelerating. I will review some of the data that has led to this unexpected conclusion. In addition, I will describe an ongoing project using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope at Apache Point Observatory that is contributing to this issue: a search for type Ia supernovae. I'll describe the motivation for this project, techniques we're using, and some preliminary results.

June 22, 2007

White Dwarf Binaries: Supernovae Ia progenitors,
LISA and X-ray sources.

Ashley Ruiter, Astronomy, New Mexico State University

Ashley outlines her intentions for her doctoral dissertation project, which are in effect three projects, all of which center around white dwarf binary systems in the hope of detecting gravitational waves. The idea of gravity waves is now a century old, a consequence of Einstein's space-time theory, but we've yet to detect any hint that they truly exist. Two large observing programs are being built to detect gravity waves, LIGO and LISA. LIGO, a ground-based gravity interferometer, came on-line a year ago. LISA, a similar space-based instrument, won't be launched any earlier than 2015. In preparation for LISA, Ashley is modeling the evolution of white dwarf binaries, stellar systems that may be the progenitors of Type Ia supernovae and which offer the best hope of detecting gravity waves as they inspiral.

October 26, 2007

Fred Builds a Very Attractive
Roll-off Observatory.

Fred Pilcher, Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Fred begins his presentation with the three rules that were emphasized in last year's "Four Member-constructed Observatories": (i) Plan, plan, plan, (ii) seal, seal, seal, and (iii) keep the neighbors happy. In a series of very nice photographs, Fred documents in detail the construction of his new roll-off observatory just 30 feet away from his house, while commenting on the architectural integration of the observatory with both his house and the neighborhood as a whole. The end result appears not only highly functional but very attractive.

November 16, 2007

High Precision Lunar Imaging.

Tony Gondola, Astronomical Society of Las Cruces

Tony presents a very impressive summary of his recent work in digital post-processing techniques, combining hundreds of progressive scan, high-frequency scans (60 frames/sec) into a very stable image that can then be sharpened to image qualities better than could be produced by any professional observatory just a few decades ago.

The sound quality of this lecture is degraded because the lapel microphone had slipped so as to rub against Tony's clothing as he spoke and moved around, but don't let that discourage you.

January 25, 2008

How is a NASA Planetary Mission Formulated?

Reta Beebe, Astronomy Department, New Mexico State University

Reta discusses the structure of the National Academy of Science and its role in determining NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program. Dr. Beebe's research has involved interpretation of data from the NASA Planetary Exploration program. She has worked on Voyager, Galileo, and Cassini data and used the Hubble Space Telescope for a Jupiter/Saturn observing program early in the mission. She was also a member of the Shoemaker/Levy team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in 1994.

February 22, 2008

New Telescope Designs for Advanced Amateurs:
What’s New in the Last Decade or Two?

Tom Krajci, Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Tom presents detailed design criteria for several popular telescope designs that are capable of being manufactured by the amateur himself but which will provide him with significantly advanced capabilities at potentially much lower costs than commercially available equipment.

March 28, 2008

Recollections of a Legend  (audio only/MP3 format)

Walter Haas, Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers

Walter shares his unique insights from a lifetime of pursuing solar system astronomy, including his recollections of his life-long friendship with Clyde Tombaugh and his pivotal role in the founding of the Association of Lunar & Planetary Observers.

April 25, 2008

A Revised Classification of Galactic Morphologies  (PowerPoint format)
Slides Shown During Talk  (PowerPoint format)

Wirt Atmar, AICS Research, Inc., Las Cruces

Françoise Combes, l'Observatoire de Paris, recently wrote, "A barred galaxy looks like a spinning lawn sprinkler, where the water flows through a straight tube, emerges at right angles and then curves around." However this simple explanation is wholly discounted in modern astronomical thought. Wirt argues that Combes' statement may actually be correct.

Two approaches are possible in the conduct of science: natural history and natural philosophy (physics). In the absence of a physical understanding, natural philosophy, which initially entails little more than the grouping of observed patterns, has often proven to be exceptionally powerful. The current computer models do not match the observed patterns particularly well, and Combes' statement, although offered as an off-hand comment, may indeed be the more correct interpretation.