2.22.08 SETI Lecture @ FIT

I went to this lecture as a BAS representative. Seth Shostak was the speaker at FIT's Friday Public Lecture Series. Seth is a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, and the 2004 winner of the Klumpke-Roberts Award awarded by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.
Anyone who went to the lecture knows what an amazing speaker this guy is. Engaging and jovial, he really impressed me. His topics were, but not limited to, finding intelligent life out there and the implications. The crowd overwhelmed the number of seats and people lined the walls. Apparently UFOs are ripe for discussion in Brevard. You can view his engaging lectures via his SETI page, as well as listen to his radio show.

Did YOU go to the lecture? What did YOU think? BAS Forum's would love to hear your comments on the lecture!

2.20.08 Lunar Eclipse

Second event I attended, and when I recieved my official name tag. Score! We all met at the BCC Planetarium & Obs. for our monthly meeting at 7pm. Meeting took place up on deck due to Scott Vangen's Wed. Astronomy class. John-1 went over Messier Contests, and Roy gave a neat talk on the history of Messier.
The eclipse attracted many people to our Obs. to view the last lunar eclipse till Dec.2009. We had partial cloud cover with some nice openings to see the eclipse. The weather was cool and dry, around the high 60's.We did not keep an official count, but I presume well over 100 people looked through our scopes. Saturn was out, as was Mars.

Were YOU there? How was it? Tell us how much fun YOU had!

2.16.08 Valkaria Air Fest

First BAS event I volunteered for. Took place Sat. 2.16.08 at Valkaria Airport. The sun was out all day, thank goodness. The weather was clear with light breeze and temps during the day were in the high 80's; then cooled into mid 70's during the night. Overall great weather conditions. Plane demonstrations and a rocket-car demo were the highlights besides our scopes. We saw some Sun "prominences" during daylight and Saturn, Mars, the Moon, and the Orion nebula during the night. We had roughly 615 people peer through our scopes.Thank you to Chris for coming out and getting some good shots for us. More pics after the jump.

Tell us your thoughts on the VAF!