And now Astronomy, the world’s largest magazine on the subject, proudly announces a partnership with the Rockland Astronomy Club to sponsor this terrific event. “We are excited to have Astronomy involved in the meeting because the magazine understands the market and the need to bring a younger audience into the hobby,” says Alan Traino, NEAF’s chairman and the driving force behind the gathering.
The two-day event will feature stellar speakers, including Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley, Amy Mainzer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Philip Goode of the Big Bear Solar Observatory, Astronomy Contributing Editor Mike Reynolds, Chris Lintott of BBC Sky at Night magazine, Clear Sky Clock creator Attilla Danko, and solar observer Erica Rix.
A dazzling array of equipment will be on display, offering one of the best opportunities to see new and innovative equipment and to try out and inspect telescopes and accessories up close. All the major manufacturers will be there — Celestron, Explore Scientific, Meade, Orion, Questar, Stellarvue, Takahashi, Tele Vue, Vixen — and dozens of smaller companies. Imagers will be particularly keen on checking out equipment from the camera companies, which include Apogee, Atik, Canon, the Imaging Source, Finger Lakes Instrumentation, Quantum Scientific Imaging, Santa Barbara Instrument Group, and others.
A significant event precedes NEAF, as in the past, with the NorthEast Astro Imaging Conference (NEAIC) 2010, held at the Holiday Inn in Suffern. It features the latest in imaging equipment and spectacular photos of planets and deep-sky objects. On April 15 and 16, Imaging Conference attendees will present many talks including a Thursday night remote imaging session supervised by Tim Puckett. Poster sessions will share results from the community of astroimagers, and at least two dozen companies will display equipment. You won’t want to miss it!
And NEAF itself will feature many things to do. There will be astroimaging workshops, daily solar observing, STARLAB planetarium shows, classes on amateur astronomy for beginners, and an emphasis on space and astronomy for kids. Traino expects more than 3,000 amateur astronomers to attend NEAF and, in addition, expects 2,000 youngsters and their families to participate from the New York City area, which will add a new dimension to the meeting this year — developing the future of the hobby.
In conjunction with NEAF, Astronomy magazine will proudly sponsor a contest that sends a young astronomy enthusiast to the meeting. Find details on this exciting contest at Astronomy.com next week!
For more information on NEAF, visit the official web site, www.rocklandastronomy.com/neaf.htm.
And stay tuned for further releases involving NEAF and Astronomy magazine!
