Enthusiasm for observational astronomy, curiosity about cosmology, achievements with CCD imaging and technology. These and all other aspects of astronomy are interests shared by members of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton. The club is based in Princeton, (Mercer County) New Jersey. This organization of 100 + promotes astronomy-related activities for members and non-members, novice to expert.  A wide spectrum of astronomy interests are explored at the AAAP through regular meetings, workshops, use of the two club observatories, public outreach and regional star parties. Come explore our web site.  Here you'll find details about our organization's meetings, discussion topics, members and their scopes, and a lot more. Our organization maintains two observatories: the larger in Washington Crossing State Park (housing a research-grade 355mm Schmidt-Cassegrain catadioptric and historic 159mm Hastings-Byrne refractor). A second facility is found at Jenny Jump State Park in northwestern New Jersey. This houses a 318mm custom-built Newtonian reflector. Check out our current events page and mark your calendar!     Click here to get today's latest astronomy and space news!

Tuesday - May 13, 2008   David W. Hogg, Center for Cosmology & Particle Physics, NYU, will be our keynote speaker this evening.  Dr. Hogg's presentation is titled, "Astrometry.net:  Automated calibration of amateur astronomy imaging data for scientific research." Hogg and his tream are building an "astrometry engine" to create correct, standards-compliant astrometric meta data for every useful astronomical image ever taken, past and future, in any state of archival disarray.  David's main research interests involve study of the formation of galaxies in a cosmological context.  Currently, he is working on observational evidence for the fundamental processes of cosmogony at late epochs: clustering, accretion, and merging.  He uses data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Spitzer Space Telescope, Galaxy Evolution Explorer, and other large projects.  Dr. Hogg and his group maintain and use more than 30 Tb of astronomical data. They do science with, and create new data analysis techniques for, data sets of non-trivial size and complexity. If you think Astrometry.Net will be a fascinating presentation - you're right on target.  (And note meeting location change in red below).

2008 Meetings NOTE - The May 13 meeting will not be held in Peyton Hall. It has been reassigned to the Friend Center - corner of Olden and William Streets (across from the Engineering Quad). The meeting will begin at 8:00 PM The next regular meeting of our 2008 season is Tuesday, May 13.  Meetings begin promptly at 8:00 PM . Meetings start with brief announcements of general interest, followed by a guest speaker presentation.  After the guest speaker, the general meeting commences, reviewing current and future club activities, astronomy news, and public outreach projects.  Refreshments are often served.  Regular attendees of the lectures are encouraged to become paid members to support these popular speaking events.  Please email the AAAP for additional details.

The AAAP Observatory The 2008 Public Observing season at the AAAP Observatory begins Friday, April 4.  The public is invited on Friday nights - April through October 2008 - to visit our Simpson Observatory (weather permitting). The facility is located in Washington Crossing State Park, a few miles outside Pennington, NJ. Visitors are shown a myriad of astronomical wonders including planets, The Moon, galaxies, nebulae, star clusters and much more. Learn the seasonal constellations and how to identify them.  AAAP astronomers operate a 6.25" Hastings Byrne refractor (shown at left) and a research-grade Celestron 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain on a Bisque Paramount ME mount. For directions, and further details, please visit the observatory page.

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