20120504ACAKBMin
The Astronomy Club of Augusta held its
May 4th meeting on Friday 7PM, at RPSEC. Attendance
totaled 17.
As we waited for attendees to come in,
we had interesting informal discussion with our speaker and others. Tedda welcomed all
to the meeting, introductions were made. Ron F., previous President's Awardee and Coronado expert, was welcomed back to our
meetings, and he generously offered his support to our club. We asked some
challenging basic astronomy questions, and gave help on the answers. Stan passed out some new versions of his
Astronomy the Works DVDs, which include Stellarium,
Virtual Moon Atlas and other useful club programs and videos.
Mark Moffatt
gave a short talk about SETI and amateurs using raw data from the professional
astronomers to “mark” signals out of the noise.
Gary Osburn,
Nominating Committee Chair, gave a final presentation on our slate of officers:
Tedda Howard,
President, Stan Howard, VP Observing, Kenneth Beard, VP Programs, John White,
Treasurer. New member, Charles Gantt volunteered
to be Secretary. The motion to vote for the slate of officers by acclamation
was made, and seconded. It carried unanimously.
Kayce volunteered to be on the Membership
committee and also to contribute to Youth/Student programs. Brenden Taylor volunteered
to explore the possibility of a Facebook page for the
club.
The President read a letter of appreciation from Gary Senn and the RPSEC, thanking the club for its participation
in the Earth/Sky Event for National Astronomy Night. They counted 357 attendees,
who were variously challenged, educated, and entertained by our club volunteers
with Telescopes on the Lawn.
John White reminded us that tomorrow
night, May 5, the moon will be at perigee and 14% larger than normal. He then gave his stirring
rendition of the popular song, "I wear my sunglasses at night". This was to remind us of several ways to cut
down on the brightness of the moon, which might otherwise be visually uncomfortable.
Alternatively, a filter can be used, or something (such as a cardboard with
smaller hole) to reduce the aperture of the telescope.
Pat Noisworthy
was out of town, but Tedda showed us his gift to
the club of Celestron 15x70 large binoculars, which he gave us at the NAN Challenge. John
promised to make an accompanying lazy susan mount for
the club.
Upcoming calendar events:
May 19, Saturday 6PM at NMR-DSO, Officers
Planning Meeting for 2012-13 Club Year.
We ask all members to please check the
2012-13 draft calendar of events page, and send comments and suggestions
reflecting YOUR interests for programs and activities for this coming
year. Officers please come on time,
supper provided.
May 19, Saturday 7:30PM Star Gaze at
NMR-DSO, Melon coolers provided.
May 27-28 - see below.
June 1, Friday 7PM at ASU, Meeting with a program: Journey
to the Edge of the Universe by Don
Hostetler.
June 5, Tuesday 5:30PM near
RPSEC, last Transit of Venus this century. Earlier in the year, the club indicated
an interest to visit the Atlanta Astronomy Club Deerlick
Astronomy Village, DAV, this fall for Peach State Star Gaze (PSSG)
However the date is in conflict with our
annual outreach program, Solar Observing on the Lawn for SEED at RPSEC
on Oct. 13. Mark M.
informed us of some details and attractions for the DAV. Update:
Tedda subsequently contacted the DAV. They
will have their annual free Open House on May 27-28, Sunday 4PM - Monday of Memorial Day Weekend, with potluck
supper, tour, and observing. This is a
good deal. Check out the DAV invitation,
and try to go. Be sure to RSVP before
May 24, include a CC to Tedda please, and take an
appetizer for 6-8. The President introduced our main
speaker. Dr. Monique Aller
is a third generation astronomer, currently at USC Columbia as a Post Doctoral
Researcher.
Monique introduced us to several interesting concepts in groups of three related to her work on classifying Galaxies.
The content of most, if not all,
galaxies includes a central black hole, radiation, dark matter, stars, dust, and
gases. Various telescopes and filters
allow us to see these last three: red spectrum signifies dust, yellow the
visible matter, and blue the hot gases. Galaxies can also be classified by
shape: elliptical, spiral, and irregular.
As presently understood, galactic
evolution seems to begin with irregular tadpole formations becoming spiral and then elliptical. There is a vital role which amateur
astronomers can play in the visual classification of the galaxies, such as
using Galaxy Zoo and other programs, when the pros are not using automated
algorithms.
Ms. Aller is
a well organized, detailed, and entertaining speaker. She joins a list of such
speakers we have enjoyed this year, and has agreed to return and give us
another talk in the future, to which we can all look forward. Many thanks to Gary Osburn for providing us with refreshments once again. We were able to set up the Bell Televue Genesis telescope, and give Kayce and some others a look at
the full moon before they had to leave. We followed shortly thereafter. Respectfully submitted, Kenneth Beard
Dues for the 20112-13 Club year are now due! and we must pay the AL our share. Please send your check for $10 to John White, or bring with you to the Star Gaze on May 19. Thank you.
20120519ACAKBMin
The Astronomy Club of Augusta scheduled its Officers’ Meeting for 6PM and its monthly Star Gaze at NMR-DSO for 7:30. Attendance totaled 7.
Tedda prepared a meal for the officers so that we could save time and travel expense. Stan put out the newly refurbished ACA road sign, which he sanded, re-sanded with sparkly grit, and repainted. As Kenneth and John both noted, it looks brand new, and will help our members and guests locate us for club activities. Kenneth brought his rockets, so we could take a look to see what we need to ready them for flight. We decided we have everything but the plastic cement, which Kenneth offered to bring to NMR next Saturday 2PM. Anyone who would like to help put them together is invited to come. Kenneth also brought his chart for coordinating meeting dates and potential speakers.
With that we started our meal and a discussion of programs, main speakers and 2-minute talks. We decided we are ready to start contacting potential speakers and made some calls later in the evening. Kenneth subsequently followed up with more contact information and emails to two potential out of town speakers, Drs. Calhoun & Caillault. We noted that this is all contingent on our having a good audience, at about 20 people or more. We have had some excellent programs that all attendees seemed to enjoy this past year, but we border on not having enough audience, despite membership of over 50 families. It is particularly frustrating when it comes to out of town speakers. We want to demonstrate our appreciation for their coming to us, (most often without financial remuneration), by having a welcoming audience.
Tedda mentioned that she has a good publicity email list and sends advance notice out each month. We reviewed several other options. John arrived later and joined the discussion. He said he would send the contact info for the __________-, a special calendar section of the Augusta Chronicle. We continue to ask the membership for attendance support and to encourage their friends and neighbors to come. Some members have responded positively to this, and we gain great new members. Although Tedda has included a printable flyer for members to post at their local library, office, grocery store, or other, members report they have not yet used it much. Tedda was asked to continue to include the flier, and officers would talk more with members about using it. Charles was unable to come due to a last minute emergency, but we noted his interest to update the website, and Brenden Taylor’s offer to help us get a facebook site.
On-time attendance was also discussed. In the past, the ACA met at 8PM. Then it was decided that this was too late for younger members, so we changed to 7PM several years ago. Now we find that we have not adequately increased the number of youth at our meetings, and many of our members seem to be having difficulty getting there on time.
For now, we decided to keep the meeting time at 7PM, provide some snacks up front as well as afterwards, schedule our main speaker first, and cover club activities, business, and short speakers later. We hope all members will like this format better, or suggest their preference. Please try to come 5-10min early for a great program on June 1 at ASU beginning at 7PM!
We discussed setting a focus for our 2 minute talks this year on current constellations. Kenneth will provide a list of constellations by month and types of information to present. We encourage members to volunteer/sign up at our next meeting to speak on a constellation coming into view some time this year. We can continue to volunteer to present lunar and other 2 minute talk topics as well.
Although developing observing skills is the real focus of our club, both for the general public and particularly for our members, we have not had the best weather for some recent star gazes. Even so, we encourage all members to come. There is a wealth of learning opportunities available at EVERY star party. Despite some clouds this evening, Linda was delighted to get her first view of thin crescent Venus, Saturn and its rings, and more was available as mentioned below.
This is the time of year that we have our membership drive, and all officers are available to help the Treasurer to accept our modest dues. John asks everyone to pay up now, so that he can send in our share to the Astronomical League on time. Thank you for your support and cooperation. Bring to the June 1 meeting or mail your $10/year/family dues to John White, ACA Treasurer, 4254 Woodland Drive, Martinez, GA 30907. Thank you.
John is especially interested in refining observational opportunities for the members. He suggested that we set up our scopes as close as reasonably possible to each other, and set a structured time during which we will all observe the same section of the sky. The officers agreed that 9-9:30PM would be a good time, and that we would ask the members to try out this idea and see how they like it at our next Star Gaze on June 16. John volunteered to prepare a list and summary of items we will be looking for, and Tedda will put it on the Calendar of Events page. John will lead our first short presentation on site, and describe what we see/are looking for and why it is so interesting. Before and after 9-9:30 members may continue or move on to more personal observations, sharing as ever.
John reported on the possibility of a drive motor for the TeleVue Genesis telescope. He found a motor with a manual press button action would be ~$50. However when the TeleVue is polar aligned, it only requires turning one handle to keep an image in view. The press button motor would not improve the ease of doing this. To have a motor driven timer would cost about $4-500, not in our budget at this time. Later in the evening, we found that Stan and Co. had polar aligned the TeleVue, and learned how easily we could keep Saturn in view, and re-find it as needed, with just one handle.
John also reported that he picked up and paid $17.12 for the rubber stamp that Michelle ordered for the club, that he would donate a stamp pad and ink, and bring all to the June 1 meeting.
John notified us that the Astronomical League wrote asking for our votes on AL Officers. In the Club’s name, we voted for Carol Iorg President, John J Goss Vice President, and Thomas K. Lynch Treasurer.
This is a great time to make suggestions and add ideas for our new club year. All officers are listening and ready to accept all comments. You can check out the draft 2012-13 calendar at the bottom of our Calendar of Events page. We will have a more detailed calendar ready by July 1. Please speak up/email your preferences now, so that we can incorporate them in our 2012-13 plans.
Nature and human nature, clouds and light pollution partially obscured our efforts to see Alpha Centauri and certain stars, but still it was a beautiful night. We periodically got a clear view of impressive crescent Venus, Vega and Lyra, the Big Dipper, Corvus, and Mars in Leo. I am never disappointed when I am able to view Saturn through a telescope.
Respectfully submitted,
Kenneth Beard
20120428KBACAM
The Astronomy Club of Augusta responded to the Deerlake Astronomy Village Open House invitation on May 27, 2012. 3 members were in attendance:
I am sure we would have had at least one more member but a tragic heart attack sent John Whites daughter to the hospital. He was therefore, unable to attend. Our thoughts go out to he and his family.
DAV put on quite a picnic. We met several interested amateur astronomers. We were even able to recruit 3 potential speakers which we hope the club members will welcome by their attending their presentations.
We also got an opportunity to see another level of amateur astronomy where you can have your own private observatory and even control it via the Internet from an off site location.
We were shown some extraordinary deep space astro-photos. And one of our future speakers gave us quite a Dobsonian view of lunar rilles.
We left about midnight, a little tired but very happy with our experiences.
Respectfully submitted,
Kenneth Beard
20120530ACATHMin
Tedda Howard was invited to present a program about Astronomy at Maxwell Branch Library om May 30, 2012 to 50 pre-teens (ages 5-10), some parents and adults. Linda Beck, Head Librarian, was well prepared with age appropriate astronomy books for reading this summer, and she helped Tedda put some posters on the wall. The children were attentive and well behaved. In fact we had a lot of fun together.
We started by defining our address in the universe. We stopped to talk about earth and other planets. Many children knew them in order and things that could distinquish them. The Asteroid Belt stumped them, so we talked about them and the Dawn Mission, gravity assist and ion propulsion. They liked helping with the demonstrations. We talked about the moon, and the children saw amd learned to say the names of all the Maria. We talked about why we can see so many craters on the moon, in contrast to earth, and we demonstrated the phases of the moon and the importance of the terminator. This lead us to a demonstration of Venus and its phases. Tedda told them about the Transit of Venus next Tuesday, and encouraged them to come to the RPSEC for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
During the program Tedda gave them small tokens of recognition for getting right answers and helping, some cards with our webaddress, ACA pens, prints of the Helix nebula. We agreed that more prizes would be available for short reports on astronomy books that they read. There were sighs when the time was up. We took some photos 1, 2.
Linda was very happy and has invited us to come back next summer, when she will have a black/marker board and computer/flashdrive hookup to a projector. She explained that she has these older children in the summer, and younger pre-school in the winter, true for most of the area libraries. I suspect that if our members would like to volunteer to present another program this summer, it would be welcomed.
