Astronomer Joe DePasquale at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is the main image processor for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, NEAIC, April 19, 2013. // photo by David J. Eicher
The second day of the Northeast Astro-Imaging Conference (NEAIC), held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Suffern, New York, kicked off early on April 19, 2013, and brought more than 150 astroimagers together for many amazing talks and presentations. Among the second day’s speakers were Joe DePasquale of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who is the principal image processor for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Joe’s tips and tricks on image processing, used with some images as recently released as a few days prior, were amazing to see. The crowds also heard from Yuri Beletski, who spoke about imaging dusty regions in the sky; Jim Lafferty, who described Hydrogen-alpha imaging of the Sun; Peter Lipschutz, who spoke on building 3-D images; Jerry Bonnell, who presented tips relating to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day; and Caroline Moore, who described progress with her ambitious school observatory project.
The afternoon also brought the enormous setup process over at Rockland Community College, in preparation for the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF), which took place today and will continue Sunday. A battery of folks from Astronomy magazine are here, myself included but also Publisher Kevin Keefe as well as Jeff Felbab and Ken Kozerski from our advertising department. I also will be spending time at the Astronomy Foundation booth, as will Vice President Karen Jennings. The AF has some exciting new initiatives and projects to report on this year. We held our annual board meeting Thursday and again voted on me as president, Karen Jennings as vice president, and Frank Dibbell as treasurer. More on this group will be forthcoming soon.
I’ll keep you posted on the daily activities at NEAF this weekend, which will see several thousand people at this unique event.
For all images from this trip, visit the Online Reader Gallery.
Related blog:
Imaging-processing rules at the Northeast Astro-Imaging Conference