We are pleased to announce a talk by famed comet hunter and author David Levy at the October meeting of the Huachuca Astronomy Club. Our October meeting will be held in the Cochise College library (Library Commons) on the Sierra Vista Campus on Friday, October 30, 2015 at 7PM. The meeting is FREE and open to the public.

Dr. David Levy is the discoverer (or co-discoverer) of 22 comets and 53 asteroids and is the author of 34 books. He was catapulted to international fame with the discovery of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (D/1993 F2), the comet that broke apart and collided with Jupiter in July 1994, providing the first direct observation of an extraterrestrial collision of Solar System objects. Among his many books are The Quest for Comets, a biography of Pluto-discoverer Clyde Tombaugh in 2006, and his tribute to Gene Shoemaker in Shoemaker by Levy. He has provided periodic articles for Sky and Telescope magazine as well as Parade Magazine, Sky News and, Astronomy Magazine. The asteroid 3673 Levy was named in his honor. David was awarded the C.A. Chant Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 1980 and was recipient of the 1990 G. Bruce Blair Medal. In 1993 he won the Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. In 2007, Levy received the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Edgar Wilson Award for the discovery of comets

David’s talk is entitled Sixty years of observing:  The observing records go public.

We will treat David and Wendee to dinner at Outback at 5PM before the meeting. Members that would like to join us for dinner should RSVP to Ted Forte by email:

HAC member Ted Forte has been selected as an OSIRIS-REx Ambassador.  The mission of this ambassador program is to provide communities with knowledgeable volunteers to provide mission updates and information to the public about the asteroid sample return mission that is being managed from right here in Tucson.  Ted is already a Solar System Ambassador, a volunteer program administered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena CA. The OSIRIS-REx Ambassador program is managed out of the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona.    OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program; it will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu and bring a small sample back to Earth for study. The mission is scheduled for launch in late 2016. The spacecraft should reach its asteroid target in 2018 and return a sample to Earth in 2023.

The OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center is at the University of Arizona.  Overall mission management is being provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD.  The spacecraft is being built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, CO.

Ted can be reached at and is available to schedule talks at your school, civic organization, or youth group.

The September edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download. Submissions for next months issue can be sent to , our Nightfall editor.

The Huachuca Astronomy Club will hold their September meeting in the Community Room of the Student Union Building, Cochise College Sierra Vista campus on September 25, 2015 at 7 PM.  Our speaker will be Dean Salman, a program specialist in the Advance Observing Program at Kitt Peak National Observatory. An amateur astronomer since he was 12 years old, Dean became interested in astrophotography in 1973. In addition to his work in the nighttime programs at the National Observatory he operates a remote observatory located at the San Pedro Valley Observatory in Benson, Arizona.  The meeting is FREE and open to the public.  Cochise College is located at 901 N. Colombo Avenue, Sierra Vista.

Our next meeting is August 28 at 7PM in the Cochise College Student Union Building. Our speaker will be Dr. Vishnu Reddy of the Planetary Science Institute.  We will be treating Vishnu to dinner at the Outback Steakhouse before the meeting on August 28.  Dinner is at 5PM and the meeting starts at 7PM.   if you would like to join us for dinner. Continue reading→

The August edition of the Huachuca Astronomy Club newsletter, Nightfall, is now available for download.  We hope you like the new look.  If you would like to comment on it, please post on haclist or email HAC president .

Dine under the Stars (DUTS) tickets will be available at the August meeting.  By purchasing a DUTS ticket, you will be supporting the University South Foundation which owns the Patterson Observatory and which supports the students, faculty and staff of the University of Arizona South.  Continue reading→

Starting at the August meeting, I’ll be taking orders for the 2016 RASC Observer’s Handbook ($22.25) and the Astronomy magazine 2016 Deep Space Mysteries calendar ($6.50) and asking that you pay for your order when signing up.

For the past several years, we have been purchasing the Astronomy Magazine Deep Space Mysteries calendars. These very popular calendars are offered to astronomy clubs at a 50% discount. Continue reading→

You might be interested in our free astronomy classes to be held at Patterson starting on September 22.  Continue reading→