Free and Open to the Public

2 Talks

Which Way is North? and South and East and West?
By Keith Lawrence

Keith will present a short talk on how to find North, South, East and West within the field of view of your telescope. This is important when star hoping, helpful identifying double stars and when observing multiple objects. He will demonstrate several pitfalls that may have you going South when you want to go North, East when you want to go West.

Camera Basics 
(How cameras work)
By Paul Walker

This presentation will cover DSLR (digital single lens reflex) cameras and touch on the more specialize astro-cameras. Paul will cover some basic concepts needed to understand how cameras work by answering the questions:
● What is f/ratio?
● What is focal length?
● What is ISO setting?
● How do these relate to taking pictures?
● How do the imaging sensors in cameras work?
● Does the size of the imaging sensor matter?
● Paul will discuss some of the trade-offs between choices of cameras.

Free and Open to the Public

Stay tuned for more details.
Contact info@vtastor.org for more info

Free and Open to the Public

2 Talks

Sketching Celestial Objects
By Keith Lawrence

Keith will present a short talk on recording your observations, including sketching, for future reference. He will feature recommendations from The Astronomical League and talk about how to be recognized for your efforts.

Basic Astro-imaging
By Terri Zittritsch

Terri will cover some of the equipment steps she took to start photographing the sky. Including astro-imaging with just an SLR (single lens reflex) camera on a tripod, Astro-imaging with DSLR (digital single lens reflex) piggy backed on a telescope, video imaging with a small web cam on an SCT and then graduating to a equatorial mount with small refractors and using a computer.
While Terri went the path of adding a computer fairly early on when she started imaging through a scope, you can do such imaging without a computer very successfully as some of our members have done and currently do.