[sac-board] June minutes, finally

Below are the minutes from the June meeting.  I'm sorry this took so long,
but I had some computer problems that needed to be resolved.  Enjoy!
 

Joe

 

Saguaro Astronomy Club

Minutes of the General Meeting

June 4, 2004

 

The meeting was called to order at1932MST by President Thad Robosson.  There
were 41 attendees.

 

1.      Thad welcomed the assembly and asked if there were any guests in
attendance.  There were four including a previous member and a new member.
2.      Treasurer Al Stiewig invited the guests to sign the guest book and
reminded everyone that there were member services forms available.  He
reported that the club has $1483.87 in the checking account, $4329.13 in
savings and $20.00 on-hand.
3.      Al also handed out name tags and still has tags for absent members
Michael Weiss and Bill VanOrden.
4.      Newsletter editor Rick Tejera informed the guests that if they sign
the guest book, he will send them a complimentary copy of the SAC
newsletter.  The June newsletter should be posted on Monday, June 7.
5.      Deep-sky chairman A.J. Crayon reported that he received some
observations of Leo Minor, but had to add some from Steve Coe and himself,
possibly due to the unusual constellation and the poor weather.
6.      The next constellations for observing reports to be included in his
column are Canes Venetici and Virgo.  The format for observations is in the
column.
7.      A.J. then offered a commercial for the Vickers CCD atlas.  The new
version is $93 for the Northern and Southern hemispheres with a CD.  The URL
is http://www.gis.net/~vickers.
8.      Mr. Crayon then related that during the last new moon weekend, he'd
been observing with the Sirius Lookers at a site near Stoneman Lake and Lake
Mary.  He met a gentleman and his young teenage son.  They had discovered
the Urban List on the SAC web site and were very appreciative.  Dave
Frekericksen added that he'd met a man from Ireland who'd downloaded the SAC
database.
9.      Steve Coe had free handouts; first, a list of the observing sites
and directions.  Second, he had a list of double stars to use to help
determine seeing.  The pairs range from magnitude 7 to 9 and the separation
from 0.8 to 2.5 arc seconds.  He invited the members to go out and observe
the stars, take notes on the magnification, telescope, site, your estimate
of the seeing and your personal condition.  For the doubles, note whether
the stars are 1. not split, 2. appear like a loaf of bread, 3. notched, or
4. separated by a dark lane.  For your personal condition, note whether you
are sleepy, have consumed coffee, alcohol, etc.  Just do a quick peek at the
stars.  In September, the observations will be compared to see whether a
useful measure of seeing can be compiled.
10.     An attendee noted that Steve's book is featured in this month's
"Scientific American" book club.  The secretary hopes that this does not
damage Steve's reputation.
11.     Show and Tell:  Paul Dickson played several excerpts from the radio
program "Star Date" that discuss the upcoming transit of Venus across the
Sun's disk.  The program's web site (http://stardate.org
<http://stardate.org/> ) has transcripts.

 

A short break was taken at 2008MST.

The meeting re-convened at 2018MST.

 

Before introducing the speaker, Vice President Jennifer Keller reported that
Dean Ketelsen had been awarded the Clifford Holmes Award for Outreach at
RTMC.

 

Jennifer then introduced the evening's speaker, William K. Hartmann, who
was/is involved with the Mariner 9 and Mars Global Surveyor projects.  He
gave a talk on the geology of Mars, the evidence for the existence of water
and how the planet's wobble might have allowed for more surface water.

 

At 2150MST, Ryan Wyatt of the Hayden Planetarium gave a very short
demonstration of "Digital Space,"  a computer program that allows
visualization of astronomical data.  The program can be downloaded from
their web site at http://haydenplanetarium.org
<http://haydenplanetarium.org/> .  Be sure to look for the user's guide
since the program's operation is not particularly intuitively obvious.

 

The meeting adjourned at 2205MST.

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