Revised August 19,  2024

Current Speakers and Talks for AHSP 2024

We will have featured speakers for Friday and Saturday evening as well a few other presentations on the weekend this year. We look forward to continuing the use of the new outside yurt to provide these featured talks and other hands-on activities during the day.

Don’t forget the online sessions we did the last few years linked below as we believe they provide many additional benefits to attendees for planning and observing.

Invitations to the virtual sessions will be emailed to those who have registered for the star party.

2024 Full Schedule Draft (pdf )

Here is the AHSP 2023 YouTube Playlist!
There are three videos now from the presentations on July 23rd 2023. The individual videos, slides and additional documents referenced in each video are posted below as we get them from the speakers.

 

On Site Speakers at AHSP 2024

6:45 pm Friday / Outside Yurt / Geoff Chester / 150 Years and Counting!

Geoff Chester, U.S. Naval Observatory

6:45 p.m. — 150 years and counting!  The sesquicentennial of the U.S. Naval Observatory’s 26-inch “Great Equatorial” telescope

Summary

In this talk I will discuss the telescope’s origins, the trials and tribulations of its early years, and its ability to evolve to adapt to 21st Century observing techniques.

Biograph

 Geoff Chester is the recently retired Public Affairs Officer and Historian for the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, a position he has held since 1997.  Prior to joining the Observatory staff, he spent 19 years working in the Albert Einstein Planetarium at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum as staff astronomer, photographer, and visual production coordinator.  He has always had a keen interest in astronomy and has been actively observing the sky for more than 60 years.  He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the Alliance of Historic Observatories, the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, DarkSky International, and the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club.

6:45 pm Saturday / Outside Yurt / Ryan Goodson / New Moon Telescopes

Ryan Goodson

Saturday 6:45 p.m. — New Moon Telescopes

Summary

Ryan will talk about making telescopes.

Biograph

Sunday, July 23, 2023

 

Sunday, August 6, 2023

2:00 pm Online / Paul Derby / Three Years with a Unistellar eVscope

Paul Derby – Three Years with a Unistellar eVscope


Summary

Paul will go over his experience with the eVscope and what has happened in the landscape of the products in the last few years.

Biograph

3:00 pm Online / Matt Penn / The Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative

Matt Penn – The Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative


Summary

Matt will be speaking on The Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Inititive 

Biograph

Matt Penn got interested in astronomy when his parents bought him a telescope while he was in third grade.  He got a bachelor’s degree in astronomy from Caltech, and completed a senior research project at their Big Bear Solar Observatory.  He was awarded a PhD in astronomy by the University of Hawaii, and did his dissertation research about oscillations in sunspot umbrae using the Mees Solar Observatory on Maui.  In 26 years of solar physics research, Matt worked with students and published research using data from solar observatories in New Mexico, San Fernando CA, and most recently Kitt Peak near Tucson. To stay in Tucson with his family (including 5 grandkids) Matt resigned from his solar astronomer job in 2018 and now is an electro-optics engineer in the defense industry.  He is currently an adjunct faculty with Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and enjoys working with excellent colleagues while pursuing his astronomy interest as an amateurs.

4:00 pm Online / Ed Witkowski / Observing Star Clusters

Ed Witkowski – Observing Star Clusters


Summary

Ed will be giving a talk on observing Open Star Clusters

Biograph

5:00 pm Online / Cindy Krach / Sketching at the Telescope

Cindy Krach – Sketching at the Telescope


Biograph

Cindy L. Krach, DVM is a retired animal surgeon and pet care practitioner, who observes and sketches deep-sky objects nightly from her driveway on Crater Road in Kula, Maui.  Cindy coordinates the astronomical sketching program and an astronomy observing sketch award for the Astronomical League, where she also has earned many observing certificates of achievement.

She is an avid amateur astronomer and a member of Haleakala Amateur Astronomers. She has  done public outreach for the University of Hawaii, Institute for Astronomy since 2010. In 2014, I created the Astronomical League Sketching Observing Program and act as coordinator. She is passionate about sketching astronomical objects but is not a formally trained artist, just have a whole lot of practice. Some of her sketches have appeared in Sky & Telescope Magazine and in 2022 a lunar sketch appeared on the magazine cover. She posts regularly on Cloudynights sketching forum.

She is currently building a truss telescope using basic hand tools for an 8” mirror that she ground and figured herself.