Dear AAVSO Members,
My name is Zakery Koban, I am the Vice President of the Amateur Astronomy Association of Pittsburgh. The AAAP has promoted popular astronomy in Western Pennsylvania for over eighty five years. With over 300 members, it is one of the larger astronomy clubs in the nation. We schedule monthly meetings September through May on Friday evenings at 7:30 PM. Meetings are typically held at the Carnegie Science Center and usually include about 50-100 members. Due to the pandemic, we have more recently transitioned to using ZOOM for our meetings. This has greatly extended our reach, as last year we were fortunate to have speakers join us from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the Maunakea Observatories and various Universities across the nation.
Each meeting includes a featured speaker; topics include any subject related to cosmology and astrophysics, space mission concept designs, new discoveries, upcoming celestial events such as meteor showers, comets, occultations, and rare planetary alignments; and observations and techniques so that all members may benefit from the experiences. I am currently seeking out new speakers for some upcoming dates in the Fall. I'd love to introduce the AAAP to the AAVSO and inspire more members to engage in variable star observing.
I'm currently seeking a speaker from the AAVSO to provide a talk to the club during our monthly business meeting on Sept 10 at 7:30 PM. Again the meeting would be held via ZOOM, lasting 45-60 min with time for a short Q& A at the end. The speaker would have the topic of his/her choice. If anyone believes that are qualified and would like to share some of their work with us (either professional or amateur), please reach out to me on this thread or at my email, vicepresident@3ap.org.
Warmest Regards,
Zakery Koban, VP
Amateur Astronomer Association of Pittsburgh, Inc.