Event

Link to YouTube Video Below

JANUARY MEETING
Via ZOOM (ID & Password Required)

Meeting & Speaker
Saturday, January 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM

 
Topic: Adventures of an Eclipse Chaser

Speaker: Joe Rao, Meteorologist (Remote)

 
Joe Matus, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, captured this image of the Great American Total Solar Eclipse from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on Aug. 21, 2017. (Image credit: Joseph Matus/NASA/MSFC)
 
 
For the past 50 years, Joe Rao has traveled around the world to observe total solar eclipses.  He has observed the solar corona from land, sea and air, from such diverse locations as the North Pole and Antarctica, Montana, Turkey and Canada's Gaspe Peninsula. He has served as onboard meteorologist for four eclipse cruises and has coerced airlines to change their flight itineraries in order to position regularly scheduled commercial flights so as to view the Sun in total eclipse. Through 13 eclipses he has spent more than 30 minutes "basking" in the Moon's dark umbral shadow and along the way has experienced many interesting and memorable experiences which he will share in this illustrated talk. 

SHORT BIO:  For 21 years, Joe Rao was the Chief Meteorologist and Science Editor at News 12 Westchester.  He was nominated for 8 Emmy Awards and in 2015 was voted First among weathercasters in New York State by the Associated Press.  Since 1986 he has served as an associate and guest lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium.  In 2009, the prestigious Walter Scott Houston Award was bestowed upon him by the Northeast Region of the Astronomical League.  He is a Contributing Editor for Sky & Telescope magazine and writes a syndicated weekly column for the online news service, Space.com.  Joe also pens a monthly astronomy column for Natural History magazine and provides annual astronomical data for The Farmers' Almanac. 
 

YouTube Video: "Adventures of an Eclipse Chaser"

Date: Saturday, January 7, 2023

Time: 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Eastern

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