Scientific Backgrounds and Capabiliies

Astronomy is both an observational science and a theoretical one. Being an amateur club, we are a tad short on theoretical astrophysicists. We do, however, have a fair number of local scientists and engineers from other disciplines in CCAS, and these folks often give our (public level) lectures on various astronomical topics, both theoretical and experimental. And, of course, we have been lucky enough to have many professional astronomers come to CCAS to give talks on some of the most current and exciting research. So CCAS is well covered in terms of talks!

As to doing observational astronomy, CCAS is, again, not at the professional level, as that game is now being played with billion dollar telescopes and satellites. But CCAS does have excellent equipment for education, public outreach, and recreational viewing. And amateur gear nowadays is quite powerful, given CCD and CMOS cameras and easy to use “go-to” telescopes with very good optics. So we can show our members, students, and visitors some amazing views of the night sky and the fascinating objects in it.

It should be noted that, although we are not a research facility, some of our members belong to AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers), which makes long time series measurements of variable stars, which are used for professional research.