I’ve previously mentioned the Northeast Astronomy Forum, the largest telescope show in the United States that will take place in Suffern, New York, April 28–29. Alan Traino, NEAF’s driving force, has announced the speaker schedule for the meeting, which is sponsored by Astronomy magazine and takes place at Rockland Community College.

NEAF will feature more than 140 on-site vendors showing everything there is to see in the world of telescopes, binoculars, CCD cameras, and accessories. It will be an amateur astronomer’s dream. The event also features solar observing, many activities for kids, STARLAB planetarium shows, events for beginners, and astronomy workshops.

The Saturday talks will begin with Robert Naeye, editor in chief of Sky & Telescope, who will outline the transit of Venus coming this June. Stephen Ramsden from the Charlie Bates Solar Astronomy Project will speak about solar observing and will introduce Steele Hill from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Mark Clampin, an astronomer working on the James Webb Space Telescope, will follow. We will then hear from Joseph Liske from the European Southern Observatory on the European Extremely Large Telescope project, followed by a screening of the film Saving Hubble, presented by its director, David Gaynes.

On Saturday night, the Astronomy Foundation will hold its annual meeting. This nonprofit telescope industry association will be focusing on astronomy outreach events and other activities over the coming years.

Sunday morning will offer a special workshop on spectroscopy by Tom Fields. The afternoon will begin with a talk on challenges astronomy clubs face by Marni Berendsen of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. This will be followed by a talk on meteorites from Steve Arnold and Geoff Notkin, the Science Channel’s Meteorite Men. I will close out the afternoon with a presentation on the latest advances in astronomy, planetary science, and cosmology. Following this, door prizes and remarks will end NEAF until 2013. For more information on NEAF, see: http://www.rocklandastronomy.com/neaf/index.html.

And if you’re at all interested in astroimaging, you should know that a major two-day conference on the subject precedes NEAF. Called the Northeast Astro Imaging Conference, it will be packed with speakers and fantastic images of the cosmos. See my past blogs for details: Calling all imagers to the North East Astro-Imaging Conference!, Updated schedule for the North East Astro-Imaging Conference. For more information on NEAIC, see: http://www.rocklandastronomy.com/NEAIC/index.html.

I heartily encourage you to go to both events — there’s nothing else quite like them in the world.