Astronomy Cafe – May 4, 2026

• Intro – Reg Dunkley
• General Assembly – a review by Lauri Roche, David Lee, Randy Enkin
  • Saturday evening – The Lighter Side of Spaceflight – Amy Shira Teitel
  • Sunday
    • Overview of the Vera Rubin Telescope – Wes Fraser
    • Stream A and Stream B
    • Presentations by Victoria Centre members and other members were all well-received
    • Some technical glitches caused speaker scheduling challenges
  • National Office staff recorded sessions, which will appear online
• Citizen Science at the RASC – Randy Enkin
  • Randy’s crater timing presentation to the 2026 GA
  • Demo of a lunar eclipse taken from Mt. Tolmie looking at the setting Moon
• Victoria Centre Observatory
  • Photometer on Takahashi at the VCO – David Lee
  • Western horizon wide photo taken with the Nikon Z30  and 16-50 kit lens operating at 3.5-6.3 – David Lee
  • New manual filter drawer between the QHY800 camera and the big telescope is now being used
  • NGC 5907 Supernova photo is pending from Reg
  • Active Observers are welcome to participate in upcoming observing sessions
• Volunteers Needed – Bill Weir
  • Bamfield – have enough volunteers
  • Beaveree – May 30th – need some volunteers
• Lunar Missions Coming Up This Year – Phil Stooke
  • Chang’e 7 – China lunar mission – landing near the south pole of the Moon, 160 days of operation. Hopping vehicle, rover, lander will all be on the lunar surface. SpaceNews article
  • US Lunar Payload missions
    • Griffin – 2 rovers on the surface
    • Blue Moon Mark 1 – test a lander
• Chris Gainor
  • Vera Rubin Telescope – Dr. Greenstreet presentation
    • Expecting to find millions of new solar system objects with the LLST discoveries
  • Artemis II
    • 12,000 photos from the mission now posted online – Earth and Moon
    • Gateway
• Astrophotos – Reg Dunkley
  • Coma Cluster
    • dSLR photo take with the VCO Takahashi telescope
    • Lots of small galaxies in-frame
  • Orion Nebula
    • Astronomy Day – Inside The Orion Nebula – presentation by Megan Meraz
    • Dan Posey’s M42 image taken with the VOC’s former Tele Vue 127is refractor
    • ALMA Submillimeter  Array – Orion Molecular Cloud
• Events
  • Beginners SIG – May 5
  • Plaskett Night – May 9
  • Council Meeting – May 12 – meeting info sent to members
  • Centre of the Universe star party events – throughout the summer
  • Island Star Party – Aug 7-8 – volunteers needed – contact Randy Enkin pastpres@victoria.rasc.ca
  • Saanich Fair– Sep 5-7 – volunteers needed for our booth – contact Lauri Roche lauri@victoria.rasc.ca
  • Astronomy Cafe
    • May 11 – next meeting
    • May 19 – Victoria Day – no Astro Cafe
    • May 25 – last Astronomy Cafe before summer break
    • Sep 14 – Astronomy Cafe restart

Video recording of meeting