After the crash of the old server housing the LAS Photo Gallery, I have it restored to the server here. The direct link to it is: http://louisville-astro.org/gallery. A random photo from the gallery is displayed in the left column. If you click on it, it will display the gallery within the web site.  If you click on the link in the “Links” section, it will take you to the stand-alone gallery page.

In the process I migrated it to the latest version of Gallery.  Some of the pictures were missing, probably due to some corruption on the failing hard drive on the old server.  The people with missing photos are Bob Hart, Greg Miller, Kevin Clark, and Don Spain. Check your albums and restore anything that’s missing.

The usernames and passwords should be the same in the new gallery.  I’m still working on linking the web site usernames and passwords with those on the gallery. Leave a comment here about any problems you find.

Once again, something happened that made me realize why I am an amateur astronomer. Last night, I was tired. It had been a chaotic day at work as I tried to make a living selling storage sheds. I had closed up the store and headed for the Urban Astronomy Center, that gateway to the stars tucked into the back of Tom Sawyer State Park.

(Continue Reading …)

Karen Collins was the speaker at our February meeting, and described her research to locate and characterize exoplanets.  She also described how amateur astronomers can contribute to the science using photometric methods.  You can download her presentation:

Exoplanet Transits

On Wednesday, June 17th, the current Long Tern Planning Committee had its last meeting – for now. First of all, I want to thank all of the LAS members who showed up for the meetings: Ken Alderson, Ed Heiny, Jeff Justice, Bo Lowrey, Greg Miller, Pat Peak and Don Spain. The task listing is presented here for everyone to see where the LAS is planning to go in the coming years. It is also open to comments and any suggestions or comments. Notice that the first 23 items have a cost attached to them. Other items farther down the line have a cost that is “To Be Determined” and others are $0. As with planning of this nature in the past, anyone who wishes to take “ownership”(i.e.,donate the cost of or part of the cost of the item)are welcome to do so. Ken will be more than happy to write your name in for the donation. as you read through this, keep in mind that this is a planning document and includes the information available to us at the time of the meetings. Any and all of this could change by next week! This is rather lengthy so grab a drink, put your feet up and read on.

Thank You!

John Turack

(Continue Reading …)