Eastside Astronomical Society: promoting interest in astronomy to Seattle's eastside community

Eastside Astronomical Society

Deception Pass Star Party - August 22 - 24: Table Mountain Star Party this year was almost a bust with clouds, freezing temperatures, dew, and great amounts of hot coffee consumed while shivering. The next local star party of the summer is our own yearly gathering at Bowman Bay State Park at Deception Pass. We are planning on sunny weather, dry and cloudless evenings this year! (Fingers crossed)
This star party is our yearly event which we mainly do for visitors at the campground. We'll have a "campfire talk" intro to astronomy both nights at sunset, then invite visitors to come down and see the sky through our telescopes.
This event is open to all the local astronomy club members, just email us with how many are coming in your group.

Information on Bowman Bay at Deception Pass.

Barnstorming Enceladus - Aug. 11: The Cassini spacecraft at Saturn will make it's 5 close pass over Enceladus on Monday, Aug. 11. This time the craft will buzz 30 miles over the surface at a blazing speed of 40,000 miles per hour.
To capture images during this fast pass, the spacecraft will do some tricky camera swinging and Cassini will do a rolling maneuver to try and get some clear shots of the vents on the pole which the geysers are spewing out into space from. Think of shooting a skeet with a shotgun, kind of the same type of motion.
If all works well, check the Cassini website for some good images of the mysterious vents this next week.

Future club telescope mirror - winter project?: We recently received an email offer that couldn't be refused. Club special of $20 for a mirror re-coating and inspection. Tom has one of the club telescopes in his basement (one of the duties of president is to store lots of old scopes!) - a vintage Criterion RV6 - which is in need of a good restoration. The mirror was sent in, and about a week later it returned in beautiful shape, looks brand new!
So, now that we have a good mirror for the old scope, the motivation for a restoration project has increased. Always looking for a good winter activity for those cloudy, cold, damp, and dark evenings, the Criterion should finally get the work done on it to become another fine club star party telescope.

-- Optic Wave Laboratories - Thanks for the offer!
-- See another RV6 which has been restored.

Best space photo ever:You just have to see this one in full size. Stunning photo of the Phoenix lander arriving under it's chute during descent to Mars. Wow!
Click here for the image and more from the Phoenix

Send your name into space:There are 2 chances to get your name on a spacecraft. The Kepler mission is a spacecraft that will be searching for stars with planets. While closer to home the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is collecting names to go into orbit around he moon. Simply sign up and your name - or even the name of your cats if you desire - will be shot out into deep space!