The good news about winter is that the skies are dark longer than they are bright (for those of us north of the equator); the bad news about winter is that it cold, often frightfully so, at night. More good news: when a cold front blows through, sometimes accompanied by bad weather, it’s not uncommon to have very clear skies behind the front. Astronomers say that the ‘transparency’ of the sky is good. What’s often not good is the steadiness of the air in the atmosphere, which astronomers call the ‘seeing’. Poor seeing makes stars look like blobs and planets look like bigger blobs.

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Light pollution is an ever-growing problem that is blocking out the night sky in major cities, obscuring all but the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Bob Parks, executive director of the International Dark Sky Association joins “CBS This Morning: Saturday” to discuss what can be done to combat this growing problem.

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/how-bad-is-light-pollution

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To help commemorate this comet, the AL developed a downloadable certificate for anyone who was fortunate enough to have seen  Comet ISON.  They can be downloadedanyone who might coordinated an ISON observing event.  It is on the AL’s downloadable certificates web page.  Please check them out.
 
The web page is:  http://test.astroleague.org/content/downloadable-certificates

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Wouldn’t it be great to be young again and to be entering amateur astronomy! Now is the time to start considering the Astronomical League’s youth awards for 2014: the National Young Astronomer Award (NYAA), the three Jack Horkheimer Youth Service Awards, and the Horkheimer/O’Meara Journalism Award.

If you know a young person who has been involved in an astronomy related research project — either of his or her own doing or though an educational institution — please consider nominating that person for the NYAA. He or she must be between 14 and 19 years of age.

If you know a League member, 18 years or younger, who has brought amateur astronomy to your club or to the public through outreach, presentations, writing, or observing, please consider nominating that person for one of the four Horkheimer Service Awards. One of these awards is more specialized than the others — the Horheimer/O’Meara Journalism Award. It requires a person who is 8 to 14 years of age to compose a 300 to 500 word essay on any science related topic. 

Since the deadlines for the National Young Astronomer Award is January 31, 2014 and for the Horkheimer Awards is March 31, 2014, now is the time for potential candidates to work on their projects and to participate in various astronomy events.

If you are a club officer, nominate them. If you don’t, no one else will! Complete information about each award can be found at test.astroleague.org/al/awards/awards.html

If you or someone you know has earned a Sky Puppy certification, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Aaron Clevenson, the interim Sky Puppy Observing Program Coordinator. Please let us know this information for your award: Your Name, Your Astronomy Club (or Member at Large), Date of the certificate, Number of the certificate. Thanks. Aaron Clevenson aaron@clevenson.org

A third new Observing Program has been added for your viewing enjoyment. The Occultation Program teaches you how to observe occultations and rewards you with a pin and certificate. For more information, see the Occultation Program Introduction page.

This time lapse consists of 90, fifteen second videos taken over the course of 90 minutes. Taken with the Lunt LS100THa scope and DMK-21 video camera. Processed with IC capture, AVIStack 2, Registax 5.1 and Dave's Video Stabilizer software for animation.

solaravi 082013 from Brian Kimball on Vimeo.

A new Hydrogen Alpha Solar Observing Program has been added to the many Astronomical League Observing Programs for your viewing enjoyment. This new Program looks fascinating. It is an addition to the existing Sunspotter Observing Program and will educate you on the finer aspects of our Sun. With Christmas coming up, I hope Santa will being me a H-alpha PST telescope so I can start this program myself.

After receiving my 43rd Observing Program certificate a month ago, I didn’t see any additional Observing Programs I wanted to start, until now. I just finished creating the web pages for the newest Bright Nebula Observing Program. Reading the requirements and looking at the Object List for the Program, I am excited to get started on this one and see what these nebulas look like in my telescope. Review the Introduction page and decide for yourself if this will be the next program you play with.