Northeast Astronomy Forum from David Parmet on Vimeo.

NEAF – the Northeast Astronomy Forum – is the astronomy industry’s version of CES with a little bit of SXSW thrown in for good measure. Held annually at Rockland County Community College, it brings out all the big manufacturers, the publications and the vendors as well as hoards of eager hobbyists with money to burn on the latest gear.

Astronomy – the hobby – isn’t cheap. A basic set-up - telescope, eyepieces and related gear – can run over a thousand bucks. Higher end telescopes used by hobbyists can run into the thousands. So yes, the industry did suffer somewhat from the Great Recession but this year things seem to be bouncing back. I spoke with a range of folks – journalists and manufacturers – and all seem to feel that the worst is behind them.

On the other hand, many folks expressed their concerns that the hobby remains dominated by older men. More than a few people mentioned the need to get more children and families involved.

This year the organizers made the effort to include more activities for children and I did notice a lot more families walking up and down the show floor than I have in the past.

One very cool note – a certain software manufacturer showed me a very cool iPad application for controlling telescopes. They are still working out the bugs but the possibilities of touch and go control of telescopes (as opposed to using a laptop in the field) boggles the mind. So stay tuned, it’s coming soon to a star party near you.

I’ll be there on Saturday, hanging with the folks from the Westchester Amateur Astronomers as well as with Night Vision Astronomy. Hopefully I’ll have some time to do some interviews which I’ll post up here.

There are a ton of workshops and speakers and of course vendors. You can get the whole scoop on the official web site here.

If you are going, drop me a line and let me know.

DSC_0228, originally uploaded by david parmet.

Last night was only the second time I’ve seen Mercury and the first time I’ve ever seen four planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn) in one night at one time.

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The sign of a perfect star party – the company, the equipment, the quality of the sky and the number of targets you can check off from your list. Last night had a bit of everything.

The Westchester Amateur Astronomers gather monthly at Ward Pound Ridge in Cross River to enjoy the dark skies. Last night we started with a 20 hour old Moon and quickly moved on to Mercury, the Orion Nebula, the Beehive and (my own personal long-time, never realized White Whale) the Leo Triplet (which I might add I managed to find manually).

And all night long we enjoyed great views of Saturn from the variety of telescopes assembled.

The clear skies are expected to continue at least for tonite, so I’ll be out late again.

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DSC_0073, originally uploaded by david parmet.

Astronomy is one of those esoteric hobbies that have pretty much been saved by the Internet. Online retailers like Orion Telescopes have thrived where once we only had mail order and a few retail stores in major cities from which to purchase the tools of our trade.

And like other hobbies down the far end of the Long Tail – it’s a lot easier for us all to find each other online than it was back in the day when all we had was a subscription to Sky & Telescope.

NEAF – the North East Astronomy Forum – is the SXSW of amateur stargazing. Every April the Rockland County Astronomy Club throws a two day shindig in the bowels of a Community College gymnasium and thousands of the faithful come from all over the North East to gaze and paw at the latest in telescope gear.

This is a ‘hold on to your wallet’ event – unless you have a few grand in the bank, it’s hard to come back from NEAF with much of anything. But in addition to the vendors, there are demonstrations of archaic skills like mirror grinding and collimation. And the schwag is second to none.

So if you are a stargazer and live in the North East, don’t miss NEAF.

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