AHARS News for Sunday 20th AUgust

Started by VK5RJ, Aug 20, 2023, 10:32 AM

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VK5RJ

Hello All,

At Thursday night's General Meeting, we were privileged to have a presentation on Astronomy, by Kym Thalassoudis, the immediate past president of the Astronomical Society of South Australia.  And what an amazing presentation on "Exploring the Universe from your back yard" it was.  I was gobsmacked by the quality of the images that Kym showed us that he had taken from his suburban back yard in Prospect, using the tools and techniques now available in the field of "Electronic Assisted Astronomy" or EAA.  And it isn't that hard.  I'm hooked and I will be doing some research and study into how I can get involved, on my limited budget. Kym has been agreed to provide us with some links to information and web sites for anybody who wants to look further.
Cloudy Nights Forum on Electronically Assisted Astronomy
https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/73-electronically-assisted-astronomy-no-post-processing/
This forum also includes excellent Beginner Guides and other useful links.
YouTube — simply search for EAA or Electronically Assisted Astronomy
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Electronically+Assisted+Astronomy
Deep Sky Astrophotography with CMOS Cameras by Dr Robin Glover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RH93UvP358
Dr Glover presents the technical side of managing astro-image noise including from light pollution.
ZWO ASIAir Plus Intro (one of many videos on YouTube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr_fG99OllY
The ASIAIR is a revolution in simplifying astronomical imaging including Live Stacking of astro-images.
Is this robot taking my job? | astrophotography shoot out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znAhp0Upanw
A fun video demonstrating the capability of the Stellina — an early robotic telescope.
Free Monthly Maps of the Night Sky (The Evening Sky Map):
https://skymaps.com/tesm/
We would still appreciate it if a lot more people would fill out the questionnaire and return it to either myself at president@AHARS.au or even better to Paul (VK5PH) at training@AHARS.au
Don't forget that this is your chance to tell us all about the good and bad, and your hopes and expectations of the Club. We are hoping that everybody will be honest and open with their responses. For those that don't have or use email, we will have hard copies at future Saturday Sessions and Club Meetings, and a few people did do this on Thursday night.
We will be having a Saturday Session coming up on the "Practical Use of FT8 on HF Bands". I don't profess to be an expert on FT8, so this will just be a demonstration of how I have put my setup together, and how I run it, in conjunction with automatic logging to QRZ and Logbook of the World using other associated free software. Hopefully we can get some contacts on the day!
And a special shout out to all members from our web master Paul (VK5PAS). PLEASE, anybody with photos, starting with the recent Life Membership presentations, and anything else at all related to the AHARS club and its activities, Paul would love to be able to include them in his work on the history of the club and show them on the Web site. Please drop him an email or get in touch via the Facebook group page and he will give you a link to where you can drop them onto his dropbox area.
Also, we need to find out how many people would be interested in taking part in a workshop with Kieth (VK5OQ) to build a balun suitable for an Off-Centre-Fed (OCF) dipole. This is potentially our Saturday Session for December, and we are hoping to put together a whole kit to assemble on the day. If you think you would be interested in participating in this activity, can you drop me an email at president@AHARS.au  We are hoping that the kit will be in the vicinity of $30-35for everything.
An important note to all amateur operators, shortwave listeners, and other interested radio people:
In the pursuit of furthering communications and interactions between clubs, organisations and radio enthusiasts, we now have access to a Forum to share information, resources and events.
Please note the following important points:
1.   The VK5.au Forum is ready to be used.
2.   The VK5.au Forum is not aligned to any specific club, and has been put online by VK5MCH (Mick) for the benefit of all interested amateurs, shortwave listeners and members of the historical radio society in South Australia.
3.   It will be monitored for unacceptable use. 
Please keep your posts friendly, succinct and on topic.
4.   The Forum is a place to promote interaction between amateur radio clubs and operators throughout the state.
The forum can be accessed using the following URL  WWW.VK5.AU
The information for our regular weekly nets is:
Monday night AHARS 2 metre net. 
147.00MHz on VK5RAD at 20:00 It is a general chat about what we have all been doing and anything that is of interest. It is open to all registered Amateur Operators, and we especially welcome new and recently licensed people to join in and overcome the jitters of being on air.  You don't have to be an AHARS Member to join in.
Boat Anchor Net. 
Conducted by VK5LB (Dean) on 3.62 MHz every Tuesday evening at 19:30   One of the longest running Nets on the airwaves anywhere!  Come up and say Hello if you have 80 metre capability!
ANZA DX Net
The ANZA (Australian, New Zealand and Africa) net runs every day on 14.183MHZ at 0515UTC with an early check in at 0500UTC.  It is a list net and one has to wait one's turn to give reports, etc. There are check-ins from all over the world (anywhere from 15 to 35 per day) and it would be a great platform for those wanting to work towards their DXCC awards.  Paul, VK5PAS and Shirley VK5YL alternate as net controllers on Thursday, which is Ladies Day, but all are welcome any day.
As always, if you have anything of interest, or any exciting news, please let me know so we can share things with all our members.
And don't forget to check out the AHARS web-site and Facebook Group page. Some interesting stuff there.
Well, that's all for now from me, so stay happy and keep making contacts, and stay away from COVID and other nasty bugs.
Cheers & 73 from VK5RJ and AHARS for this week.
John  (VK5RJ)
AHARS President

VK5MCH

That was a great presentation by Kym. I hope other cubs do one as well I will go again. So much information in one go you need to hear it again to catch up on all the things you missed or didn't understand.

Mick VK5MCH

VK5RJ

Yes Mick,  I'm looking forward to his follow-up presentations on individual smaller topics which he hope to release in the near future.

If you would be interested in these sessions, send him an email at the address in the text below....

"given the high level of interest in the general community and from AHARS members last night, I am considering how best to further share this knowledge via in-person events. This will likely take the form of a series of short talks on specific aspects — rather than trying to squeeze everything into one presentation — plus live demonstration sessions that include side-by-side visual vs electronic observing. AHARS members interested in the above can register their interest by sending me an email at: info@EnjoytheStars.com I'll get back to them once information is available."
John  (VK5RJ)
AHARS President