Donald Edward Machholz is the most successful living visual comet hunter in the United States, being credited with the discovery of 11 comets, including the periodic comets 96P/Machholz, 141P/Machholz, the non-periodic C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) that was easily visible in binoculars in the northern sky in 2004 and 2005, and most recently, C/2010 F4 (Machholz). Machholz is also considered to be one of the inventors of the Messier marathon, which is a race to observe all the Messier objects in a single night.

When populations of humans eventually make multigenerational, interstellar voyages to settle an exoplanet, they will not be chisel-chinned astronauts living by checklists; they will be families, communities, entire cultures. How can we give them the best chance to succeed? We can begin by researching how humanity has adapted to global environments in the last 50,000 years. Both biology and culture will evolve beyond Earth.

Star formation is pervasive across the universe. Understanding why some galaxies form stars more quickly and in a greater quantity than other galaxies is a fundamental question in astronomy.I use a sample of distant galaxies to investigate how star formation proceeds and how the process of star formation affects the shape of galaxies. Specifically, I use data from the Hubble and Keck telescopes to study how star formation can cause bubbles of gas and dust to be blown out of galaxies ("galactic winds").

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is NASA's next Great Observatory, the scientific successor to both the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Its scientific equipment will include several cameras to produce amazing images in the tradition of Hubble. JWST will see the first galaxies to form in the universe, and explore how stars are born and develop planetary systems. It will examine planets around other stars to investigate their potential for life, and study planets within our own Solar System. 

The surge of DSLR photography has brought a unique opportunity to the world of astronomy. Ben will speak about the ability of this growing night photography interestto connect newcomers to the expansive world of traditional astronomy. Ben will also share photos and timelapse videos of our night skies above the landscapes of our Pacific Northwest.

Douglas will be focusing on conveying a basic understanding of comet orbits, using real examples in historical context, including comets in elliptical, parabolic, and hyperbolic orbits, and showing how energy concepts can be use to characterize comet orbits.Examples will include some of the great comets of history, such as the Great Comet of 1577, the Great Comet of 1680, and Halley's Comet, as well as some illustrative recent comets, as a prelude to a discussion of the hyperbolic orbit of C/2012 S1 ISON. Will ISON survive solar passage?

The sky is home to many visual wonders some closer to earth than others. When attending a star party sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate. When this happens the weather itself can be the source of enjoyment for the educated observer.This presentation will explore the many atmospheric phenomena that occur within our atmosphere during both day and night, under both clear skies and overcast. In this survey Matt will cover common and not so common occurrences in the sky and explain the mechanics behind these often spectacular sights. From Sundogs to St. Elmo's fire come learn what you can see in the sky.

Star and planet formation is highly dynamic: the appearance of the youngest stars can change dramatically in as little as a week. Even by the standards of typically unruly young stars, some /*stars*/ exhibit remarkable changes, increasing or decreasing in brightness by factors of 1000 or more. These brightness changes are thought to be caused by sudden changes in the star's growth rate, or in the structure of the planet forming material in orbit around the star.

Have you ever dreamed of observing the pristine night sky at a truly dark site from the comfort of your home in the city? Or dreamed of sending a distant telescope on a mission to collect images of beautiful deep sky objects while you get a full night's sleep and wake up refreshed and ready for an early day at work? Then remote observing may be just what you're looking for.

David Grinspoon is an astrobiologist who studies the possible conditions for life on other planets. In November 2012, he began a one-year appointment as the inaugural Baruch S. Blumberg/NASA Chair in Astrobiology at the John W. Kluge Center of the United States Library of Congress, where he is researching and writing a book about the human influence on Earth, seen in cosmic perspective.

A product review in the most recent issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine begins with the statement "No name is better known in the world of amateur CCD imaging than SBIG, short for Santa Barbara Instrument Group." What is not so well known is how the threat of US/USSR nuclear test ban treaty violations and an "Ogre" were crucial to SBIG's beginnings. To fill in some of these interesting details, one of SBIG's co-founders, Michael Barber, will present a talk about SBIG's origins, some milestones in its history and the latest developments in its product line for amateur astronomers, including some demonstration and prototype items.

A video-packed, family-friendly exploration of the Mars exploration program through the stories of Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity — and the scientists and engineers behind the missions. Children's book author Elizabeth Rusch will take the audience behind the scenes of these successful missions by sharing NASA video clips and stories from researching and writing her book The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity.

During our general meeting on Monday, March 18th, weather at the telescope permitting, we will receive a tour of the Discovery Channel Telescope and its control room, conducted live via video teleconference, as the DCT team prepares for and begins to conduct an observing session. Our hosts will be Kevin Covey and Lowell Astronomer and Deputy Director of Technology Stephen Levine.

Richard Berry has been an amateur astronomer and telescope maker for as long as he can remember.  In 1976, Berry joined the staff of Astronomy magazine. In sixteen years as its editor, he built Astronomy magazine from a struggling start-up to the largest circulation astronomy magazine in the world. During this time, he also founded and edited Telescope Making, the quarterly journal that helped make the 1980s such explosive growth years for amateur astronomy. In the last two decades, Richard's books "Build Your Own Telescope", "Discover the Stars", "The CCD Camera Cookbook", "The Dobsonian Telescope" and "The Handbook of Astronomical Image Processing" have introduced thousands to the joys of amateur astronomy, telescope making, CCD imaging, and digital image processing.

The "golden age" of relativity, from 1960 to 1974, was a period during which black holes were closely studied and understood.Cosmology today finds itself at a similar stage of development, with breathtaking observations now making it possible to more fully grasp the role played by general relativity in shaping our view of the origin and evolution of the cosmos as a whole. The Universe has much in common with black holes, and appears to be far simpler than once thought.

The Stardust spacecraft, which has traveled 2 billion miles, was launched Feb. 7, 1999, and returned to earth Jan. 15, 2006, when its Aerogel-embedded samples of comet and interstellar dust will be returned to earth on a capsule designed to safely land them in Utah. Comets are thought to have been created before the planets, so scientists hope analysis of the comet samples will reveal information about the creation of our solar system.

In the late 1950s, anticipating the introduction of artificial earth orbiting satellites, the Smithsonian Institution developed an ambitious program to track these satellites. Almost every aspect of this major endeavor was an innovation: the science of satellite orbits, the technology of imaging and tracking, and the bureaucracy of this complex global organization. The specialized photographic telescope developed for the purpose of imaging the track of a satellite across the sky was the Baker-Nunn camera and and Joseph Nunn used 55 mm Cinemascope film.

Turn Left at Orion has become one of the most popular guides to using a small telescope ever published... but the adventures of getting it written and published were almost as much fun as all the observing we did for the book! Hear stories of the steps, and missteps, that have gone into various editions of their book... what we learned about astronomy, and observing... and watch out for those pesky wabbits!

Server Sky is a proposal to build large dispersed arrays of 3 gram paper-thin solar-powered computer satellites and launch them into 6400km earth orbit. Thinsat arrays use unlimited space solar power and operate outside the biosphere. The environmental impact of power generation and heat disposal is tiny. Earth can return to what it is good at — green and growing things — while space can be filled with gray and computing things. Besides the presentation of the overall system, we will discuss the astronomical and ecological consequences of very large solar collectors in orbit, and how Server Sky will minimize or eliminate them.

Pat Hanrahan is the Planetarium Director and teaches astronomy for Mt. Hood Community College and has been a member of RCA for many years. Last fall, Pat spent over two months as an unpaid astronomer in the NamibRand Nature Reserve of Namibia. He will be presenting an interactive visual program showing the southern skies on the OMSI Planetarium dome.

All of this -- everything that we know of in existence -- had to come from somewhere. In this journey, we'll start with the world that we know and journey out into the Universe, exploring where the elements that form everything on our planet originate from, how they were created in previous generations of stars, where the building blocks of those stars came from and how they formed into galaxies, where those very first atoms came from in the earliest stages of the Big Bang, and finally, why we have a Universe with something in it instead of nothing at all.

The last 20 years have been a golden age for astronomy as advances in space technology has allowed us to study the Universe at wavelengths impossible to observe from the surface of the Earth. Space telescopes allow us to see the most violent phenomenon in the Universe (supernovae, black holes, colliding galaxies) and the most exotic phenomenon (expanding Universe, cosmic background radiation, protostars). This talk will be a non-technical review of the history of space telescopes from the 1960's to today, our discoveries, our plans for the future and the probable decline of American science in the 21st century.

Learn just why it's so hard to get to space, and follow along some of the trials and successes of Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) through the years. Then explore some of the astronomy potential of high altitude platforms like sounding rockets and day-dream about the day when we can all afford our own backyard space telescope.Nathan Bergey is freelance data scientist and programmer who has spent thelast several years helping build Portland's own home grown space program with the Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS). He has a life-long passion for all things space.

William Herschel and his son John Herschel carried out the first comprehensive surveys of deep-sky objects and created a catalog we now call the New General Catalog, or NGC. To do this, they built and used the first really big telescopes with what today we consider primitive technology. Richard Berry will describe the telescopes these early amateur astronomers built, and show that they were well designed and effectively employed tools for discovery. The story of the Herschels begins in about 1780 and continues through about 1835.

Uncle Rod has written many articles in magazines such as Sky & Telescope and Astronomy Technology Today and a plethora of reviews on Cloudy Nights. He maintains a popular astronomy blog and is the author of several fine books.He is a great fan of catadioptric telescopes, such as the Celestron and Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain designs, and his latest book is titled Choosing and Using a New CAT: Getting the Most from Your Schmidt-Cassegrain or Any Catadioptric Telescope.