Boise  Astronomical   Society

Club Events

The club calendar can be found here.

The Board Meeting will be Tuesday January 3rd in Classroom #2 at the Discovery Center at 7:00pm.

The club meeting will be on Friday January 13th in the front room of the Discovery Center of Idaho at 7:00pm.



Star Parties
There will be a club star party January 14th at the Dedication Point Dark Sky Site.
There will also be a star party the following weekend January 21st at the Dedication Point Dark Sky Site.
Watch the BAS1 group for last minute star party information.

Watch BAS1 for Go/NoGo updates.

Observing Program

BAS is sponsoring an observing program, the Deep Sky 101. For more information, or to get started, check out the program page here.

President's Letter

The BAS board will meet on Tuesday, 03 January at 7 p.m. in Classroom #2 at DCI. We will appoint the remaining members to the 2012 BAS board as well as continue to discuss our plans for the new year. If you are interested in serving on the BAS board this year please let a current board member know. All BAS members are welcome to join us.

At our next membership meeting on Friday, 13 January, we will be holding our annual "So I got a new telescope for Christmas, now what?" event for the general public. We will meet at 7 p.m. in the front group room at DCI (note room change). I want to encourage as many of our members as are available to come to this meeting and help out potential future amateur astronomers learn how to setup and use their equipment. We'll pair each of you with someone who possesses a telescope that you are comfortable in assisting with both setup and with locating objects of interest in the night sky, all within the warm confines of the Discovery Center. We will also discuss the many activities that BAS is scheduling for the coming year, as summarized below.

We have already scheduled the 2012 Idaho Star Party# for the weekend of 14 - 16 September at Bruneau Dunes State Park. We have secured our guest speaker for the event, famed comet hunter Don Machholz. As you know, this is a great event and well worth the time and modest expense to attend. We will begin providing the opportunity to reserve campsites at the February BAS board meeting.

Besides ISP, we are also planning a full event schedule highlighted by the "once in a lifetime" opportunity to observe a transit of Venus on June 5th. Other events to look forward to include the Messier Marathon from 23-24 March; a partial solar eclipse in May; the Bogus Basin star party in June along with star parties at Farewell Bend State Park in Oregon and Ponderosa State Park this summer; a joint star party with the Magic Valley Astronomical Society at Carmela Vineyards in Glenns Ferry; and many other school and club star parties throughout the year.

We continue to accept membership dues for 2012. The dues remain $25/family for the year. Make sure you keep receiving your email copy of the BAS newsletter and all of the other benefits that come with being a member. Those 2011 members who don't renew by next month will be dropped from our membership list and will no longer receive a copy of the newsletter.

News

SOHO EIT 304 Latest Image (click image for larger view)


Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
The SOHO project home page can be found here.

NASA News
December 22, 2011 -- NASA KENNEDY SPACE CENTER 2011 REVIEW, LOOK AHEAD
December 9, 2011 -- NASA ANNOUNCES LAUNCH DATE AND MILESTONES FOR SPACEX FLIGHT
December 2, 2011 -- EXPENDABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE STATUS REPORT