20110604
ACA
held its June star party at NMR-DSO on June 6, 2011 at 8PM. A heavenly minded
group of 11 was in attendance.
Stan
and Tedda, Eddie and Michelle, Brittany and Celeste,
and their friend Shantia, Ervin, Pat, and Kenneth.
Rick, who has attended several meetings, was a first time visitor to
NMR-DSO.
Pat
and Stan both showed us the moon and Saturn.
As the night became darker, the stars appeared brighter. They focused on M4, M5, M13, and the Ring
Nebula. Pat treated us all to spectacular
views of these dim fuzzies and globular clusters with
his new 8inch Celestron equipment. He would point at what seemed to be a wholly
black portion of space to the naked eye and train the telescope to that
point. We would look through his eyepiece,
and a new vision opened up to us from light years away. Ervin put his camera on the club 8"
scope, and tried hard to get it going, but something probably needs fixing with
the software. Celeste aimed the 10"
scope on M13 and other objects. We reconnected with Hercules, and the
Serpent. Rick and Stan gave us different
views of beautiful Alberio. Rick, Tedda, Stan
and Kenneth learned how to identify large constellation, Ophiuchus. We enjoyed seeing a couple of falling stars.
We looked, but somehow we missed the Iridium flare at 23:28. All in all it was quite a night.
Stan
provided pumpkin pie and ice cream. Celeste and Brittney talked about taking on
the AL Messier list challenge, while Shantia may go
for the AL Lunar Award. The fun ended
about midnight.
Respectfully
submitted, Kenneth Beard
20110617
ACA
held its June 17 meeting in the ASU science building at 7PM. There were 19 (20)
in attendance.
Tedda
brought the meeting to order. Walt
passed out tickets for a free door prize, a book about the polymath William Herschel
who discovered Uranus, while our main speaker, Cassel Sloan, prepared the
computer and projector for his presentation. Tedda reminded
us of the relatively inexpensive financial commitment necessary to be a club
member, but that volunteer activity is crucial to club success. Several volunteered to bring refreshments, and
2 more people volunteered to present 2-min talks. Stan had two "UFO" squash, and Brenden and Cassel won them by answering the spot observing
questions. Attendees introduced themselves, and described how they came to be
interested in astronomy. Two cards that were signed by all and sent to John White
(knee surgery recovery), and Mark Moffatt (convalescing).
Tedda
introduced Cassel Sloan, who presented Update on Exo-Planets.
Cassel has given club talks before. Tonight's topic seems to be one of his
special interests. In contrast to
Herschel’s discovery of Uranus (inside our solar system), any planetary object
outside our solar system is an Exo-Planet. Cassel
listed the various detection methods used, and discussed some of the pros and
cons of each. He discussed the Kepler Mission in more detail, which lists 1235 planetary
candidates and has confirmed 16. He also
told us about recently discovered planets which do not revolve around stars,
and future missions in the expanding field of Exo-Planets.
It was particularly interesting to me
that science fiction regularly assumes the existence of planets outside our
solar system. Cassel reminded us of the
many people and programs necessary to give a scientific foundation to these methods
and discoveries.
We applauded
Cassel for an interesting and well organized presentation. Tedda presented him
with a Certificate of Appreciation from the Club. There were several Q&As during the
discussion afterwards.
We thanked
Michelle and Helenann (and Eddie) for the great
refreshments. Many members volunteered
to bring salads, veggies, and other items for our Club Picnic in August. Thank you. Please see the list on the 2011-12 Calendar of
Events page.
Our meeting
ended about 10PM. It was too cloudy for any observing.
Our
next observing will be on July 2, Sat.8PM, at NMR-DSO. Our next meeting will be on July 15, Fri.7PM
at ASU.
Respectfully
submitted,
Kenneth
Beard
