Greetings to all of our club members, visitors, and guests!

We welcome you to the regular meetings of the North Houston Astronomy Club on the 4th Friday of every month.

The Kingwood campus is located on the west side of I 69 (US Highway 59), north side of Kingwood Drive, and NW of the Kingwood Medical Center.

Click below here to see the Map and Driving Directions!
(Parking permits are not required after 6 PM!)

Lone Star-Kingwood Campus

See the following Campus Map

kingwood map

All Members, Guests, and Visitors park at the Parking Lot C across the Sortes-McClellan Road. The CLA building we both the novice and general meetings gather is building 4 as shown on this map. Click on the image above to get a pdf file with more information about the campus layout.

Physical Address

20000 Kingwood Dr.

Kingwood, TX 77339

28 June 2019

Our gathering begins with the Novice Meeting:

Place: Lone Star College-Kingwood Campus

Location: Classroom Building A (CLA) – (2nd Floor – Room CLA221)
The Astronomy Classroom

Time: (6:30 – 7:15) PM

Speaker: Bruce Pollard
(NHAC Vice President)

Presentation

Summer Nights and More!

The constellations of the Summer Night Sky containing Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Bootes, Virgo, Hercules, Scorpius, Hercules, Corona Borealis, Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Aquila, Lyra, Cygnus, and Delphinus.

Dr. Bruce Pollard, our distinguished club vice president will once again present another one of his fabulously fun presentations. This one will be on the Summer Night Skies. He will be going over all of the major constellations, asterism, DSOs (Deep Sky Objects) such as Nebulae, Star Clusters, etc.., what planets to observe during this time of the year in 2019, etc.. It is one of the best seasons to observe a variety of objects beyond the Earth-Moon System and equal to the magnificent treasures of the Winter celestial skies. Among our famous objects in the Summer, celestial skies include the Ring Nebula (M57), Epsilon Lyrae (Summer Double – Double), Jupiter (currently in Southern Ophiuchus), Saturn (after midnight in Eastern Sagittarius), Large Globular Clusters (Messier 22), and the Lagoon Nebula (M 8). Please attend this wonderful presentation on the gala of celestial treasures available for anyone to observe, photograph, and study during this time of the year!

Learn more from the following References:

Your Basic Guide to the Summer Night Sky!

The Summer Constellations

Center for Astrophysics: June 2019 Sky Report!

All for Ages: NEA – Watching the Summer Night Sky

Pick your date, time, and location: In-the-Sky. org

The Sky in June: An Array of informative articles!

The gathering concludes with the General Meeting:

Place: Lone Star College-Kingwood Campus

Location: Classroom Building A (CLA) – (1st Floor – Room CLA112)
The Teaching Teacher Auditorium

Time: (7:30 – 10:00) PM

Speaker: Bill Pellerin
(Distinguished Member of the HAS and AAVSO)

Presentation

Observing Stellar Evolution!

The different pathways of the evolution of stars during their lifetime from the 0.8x – 8x the mass of our Sun. The stars closer to the mass of our Sun will follow the path of the planetary nebulae while the more massive stars greater than 8 Suns will undergo the fate of a Supernova explosion!

Mr. Bill Pellerin has had a career that included designing electronics for offshore aids to navigation and managing computer systems for several large corporations in Houston. He is an amateur astronomer and a long time club member of the Houston Astronomical Society for which he has severed as past president. His primary achievements have been the Astronomical League award for best club newsletter (2012) and author of the ‘Observing Stellar Evolution‘ observing program for the Astronomical League. Bill is currently a member of the famous AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) with a history as a citizen scientist submitting 3498 observations to the organization since December 1997. He is a current member of the McDonald Observatory (West Texas, Fort Davis Region) Board of Visitors and directs the system management and operations at the Madrona Peak Observatory (Bandera County, Texas). This favorite telescope is his Televue refractor one the few companies that produce high – quality refractor telescopes to the national and international amateur astronomy community.

Abstract of presentation —

Bill will talk about how to observe, both visually and with a CCD camera, variable stars and how to report the data you gather to the AAVSO. The goal of the presentation is to provide the NHAC members with enough information to begin taking variable star data of their own.