Once again, I’m delighted to say that Astronomy magazine will be a principal sponsor of the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) telescope show in New York, the largest astronomy gathering in the United States. This year, NEAF takes place April 12 and 13 at Rockland Community College in Suffern, New York, and is again hosted by the Rockland Astronomy Club.Chairman Ed Siemenn does a great job of running this big show, which draws several thousand people each year to view more than 100 vendors and their wares — telescopes, binoculars, cameras, books, accessories, and more — hear talks, do solar observing, experience STARLAB planetarium shows, enjoy workshops for kids, and much more. Longtime friend of the magazine Al Nagler of Tele Vue Optics is another of the meeting’s organizers.
This 23rd incarnation of NEAF will feature talks by Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of the new Cosmos TV series, who will describe his experiences with the show and take Q&As via Skype; Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto; and Matt Greenhouse of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who will describe progress on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Also giving talks will be my friend and collaborator Garik Israelian, director of the Starmus Festival in the Canary Islands; Rick Fienberg of the American Astronomical Society on pro-am collaborations; meteorologist Joe Rao on the potential new meteor shower produced by Comet 209P/LINEAR; and me on comets. I’ll also be announcing the winners of the Comet ISON Photo Contest put on by the National Science Foundation, Astronomy magazine, and Discover magazine, as well as joining Israelian for an announcement about the Starmus Festival 2014 to be held this fall in the Canaries.
I look forward to seeing you there!
For full information on NEAF, see http://www.rocklandastronomy.com/NEAF/Index.html.