Skip to main content

Special Election at the September 2013 Meeting of the HAS

We will be voting for Vice President at the next Houston Astronomical Society meeting (September 6, 2013). You can send nominations to me (and, yes, you can nominate yourself). These nominations will be accepted up to and including meeting night. Our previous VP, Mike Edstrom has been elected Observatory Chair, and our by-laws do not allow one person to occupy two board positions simultaneously.

You or anyone you nominate must have been a member of HAS for at least one year and must be willing to serve the HAS in the position for which he or she is a nominee.

FomalhautObject: Fomalhaut
Class: Bright Star
Constellation: Piscis Austrini (the southern fish)
Magnitude: 1.17
R.A.: 22 h 57 m 39 s
Dec: -29 deg 37 min 22 sec
Size/Spectral: 1.9 solar mass/A3 (white or blue-white)
Optics needed: Unaided Eye

Why this is interesting

I remember one night I was looking for alignment stars for my telescope’s computer. One of the suggested stars was Fomalhaut, and I was forced to admit that I had no idea where this star is on the sky. So, let’s start by seeing if we can find the star. It’s a bit lonely in the southern sky but at our latitude it rises to about 30 degrees above the horizon.