The Ryerson Astronomical Society's quintessential purpose is to encourage all humanity to behold the celestial luminaries in hushed awe.
Upcoming Events
Meetings:
Fall Quarter 2010 Lecture Series: To Be Determined
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Week 2: Oct 4
Week 3: Oct 11
Week 4: Oct 18
Week 5: Oct 25
Week 6: Nov 1
Week 7: Nov 8
Week 8: Nov 15
Week 9: Nov 22
Ryerson Wednesdays: Public observing hours in fall quarter and winter quarter are 7:30-9:30 PM and 8:30-10:30 PM in spring quarter. Ryerson Wednesday will be cancelled if the sky is cloudy. Take the main Ryerson stairs to the third floor, turn right, and continue up the spiral staircase to the roof.
Special Events: We visit Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin at least once every quarter. Once every spring quarter we have a Friday evening trip open to the public, for only the small price of bus fare!
Note: If the door to Ryerson is locked, you can enter through the south door of Eckhart. Go to the second floor and cross over to Ryerson from there. If you have trouble, call +1-773-702-7625 (2-7625 from any campus phone) which rings in the office and the dome. A map of campus with Ryerson Physical Laboratory marked can be found here.
A short history of the RAS
Its beginnings lost in the misty shrouds of history, the observatory has existed since 1900 and the RAS as a student organization at the University of Chicago since 1952 (when our logbooks began). We operate a 107 year-old 6.25-inch Petitdidier refractor, along with a modern 10-inch (250mm) f/6 Newtonian, both mounted on a hundred and ten year old Warner & Swasey mount. The mount is painted blue, the same color as the great Yerkes 40 inch refractor mount. Carl Sagan was a member a long, long time ago. We're prone to holding meetings every week and giving some sort of lecture on topics usually only remotely related to astronomy. More history here.
RAS information
- Sign up for our summer-time mailing list RAS Logbook: 1952-1964 John Crocker typed in the entire contents of the logbook. Also available is a RTF version Warning: 150KB!
- Guide to reading the RAS logbook
- Membership information
- How to contact us
- RAS constitution
- Schedules of talks: 2004-2005, 2005-2006, 2006-2007
Past Meetings:
Spring Quarter 2010 Lecture Series: Planetary Geology
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Week 2 April 5th / Meteorites / Will Vaughan
Week 3 April 12th / Moon, part 1 / Joe Cottral
Week 4 April 19th / Moon, part 2 & Mercury / Alice Griffeth
Week 5 April 26th / Venus / Kate Schreiber
Week 6 May 3rd / Mars, part 1 / Dean Armstrong (tentatively)
Week 7 May 10th / Mars, part 2 / Tad Komacek
Week 8 May 17th / TBA / Pete Vandervoort (tentatively)
Week 9 May 24th / "Cosmos" / Carl Sagan
Winter Quarter 2010 Lecture Series: Ancient Astronomical Instruments
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January 4th Slide Rules Will Vaughan
January 11th Sundials I Tote Hughes
January 18th Sundials II Aaron Ewall-Wice
January 25th Moondials and Nocturnals Tad Komacek
February 1st Astrolabes Lisa Pawlowicz
February 8th Armillary Spheres and Celestial Globes Annie Kang
February 15th Quadrants and Sextants Jake Clemente
February 22nd The Antithykera Device Kate Schreiber
March 1st Early Measurements of the Earth Drew Boshardy
Budget Request Items
The RAS has a tradition of requesting funding from Annual Allocations for ambitious projects. Here are items we've requested in recent years:
Wopat
Student Astronomy Talks, no PhDs allowed.
(weekly talks run by the Astro grad students)
RAS Statement on Year 2000 Quad Floodlights
Photos
Comet Holmes
October 29th, 2007
Comet Holmes through the six-inch refractor.
Comet Holmes at Ryerson Observatory. 36x5s exposures, 0.25m f/6.
2003 UB313 animation
2005 August 8-9
RAS member Steven Lucy took these two images of 2003 UB313 at the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory, using the 41" reflector.
Yerkes Observatory Aurora
May 15th, 2005
Click for many more
images of the aurora.
Aurora of November 8th, 2004
CCD
Images (Including supernovae 1998aq!)
RAS Photo Albums
- Messier 51 - Interacting Galaxy Pair
- RAS Observatory and members
- The Solar System
- Eclipses
- Comet Hale-Bopp
- Comet Hyakutake Images
- Yerkes Trip Images
- Madison, WI trip Images
Famous Members Corner
Look into our old logbooks for an entry about activities in the RAS office. Here's another entry by this member regarding Chicago temperatures. Following his example, this shaky phrase still appears in modern logbooks, especially in the month of January.
Other space and astronomy sources
- University Of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- International Dark Sky Association
- Space and Astronomy News:
- Sky Online by Sky Publications, home of Sky and Telescope.
- SpaceRef
- Astronomy magazine
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Space Telescope Science Institute and the Hubble Space Telescope
- The Digitized Sky Survey GIF and FITS images of any coordinates.
- Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, a guide to popular and media misconceptions about astronomy
- Advocacy organizations:
- SEDS: Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
- The Mars Society
- National Space Society
- The Planetary Society
Contact:
Will Vaughan, RAS President: wvaughan@uchicago.edu.
Dean W.
Armstrong
/ (773) 702-3147 / (773) 931-9400 cell /dean+ras@uchicago.edu
Acknowledgements: Thanks to the University of Chicago Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics for providing us a place on their web server and technical support.