July Meeting & Mars Party

Ever since NASA's Viking spacecraft arrived on Mars in the mid-1970s we’ve been mesmerized by amazing landscape images from the surface of the Red Planet. Right now there are two active rovers operating on Mars and there are ways to see what they are seeing in almost real-time (barring any inconvenient dust storms, of course!) Image processor and space news blogger Jason Major will show how to access these images and how he creates “real-color” images from the monochrome data that’s available. 

Jason Major is a space exploration enthusiast, blogger, and amateur image processor. His articles on planetary exploration missions and scientific findings have been published on Universe Today, Discovery News, National Geographic online news, and on his own site LightsInTheDark.com and his imaging work has been featured by Newsweek, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and by NASA itself. Active on social media outlets like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, he has been expanding to "in-real-life" astronomy outreach programs with some neighborhood skywatching gatherings, most recently at Waterfire in Providence. Jason is a self-taught writer, image processor, and graphic designer living in Warwick, Rhode Island.

You are encouraged to bring any Mars-related materials that you may have.

We will also have refreshments, a brief business meeting and observing.