[sac-board] April General Meeting Minutes
- From: "Joe Macke" <joe01@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "SAC Board" <SAC-Board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 01:30:41 -0700
Below are the minutes of the April general meeting. There are a couple of
names missing, so Telrad, don't use these for the news letter. I'll send
them to you after the corrections are made.
Enjoy!
Joe
Saguaro Astronomy Club
Minutes of Regular Meeting
April 2, 2004
The meeting was called to order at 0234UT.
There were 52 attendees at the beginning of the meeting.
1. President Thad Robosson opened the meeting and, departing from the usual
convention, introduced the evening's speaker, Father George Coyne of the
Vatican Observatory. Fr. Coyne's talk was titled "Dance of the Fertile
Universe."
Fr Coyne concluded his talk and an interesting question and answer period at
0400UT, with 60 attendees including a den of four Cub Scouts and their two
leaders, and a short break was taken.
The meeting re-convened at 0412UT with 34 attendees present.
2. President Thad Robosson welcomed the membership and asked if there were
any guests present. One peerson identified himself as a guest. He was
given a free copy of the news letter and asked to sign the guest book.
3. Treasurer Al Stiewig reported that the club's assets include a checking
account balance of $1481.24, $4327.28 in the savings account and $20.00 as
cash-on-hand. The room rent is prepaid for three months.
4. Al mentioned that new member forms were available on the table at the
front of the room.
5. Al also reported about the first meeting of what was named the
Astroimaging special interest group (SIG.) They met at Precision Guitar
with the ATM group on March 30 with about six people, the number varying
with the number of ATM folks drifting over. Gene Lucas gave a talk
describing his equipment and setup for asteroid occultation timing. Jeff
Hopkins brought a webcam and computer and they were demonstrated. Richard
Payne talked about astroimaging software. The group will meet again next
month in conjunction with the ATM group on May 4. Richard will talk about
film photography.
6. A.J. Crayon reported that the Deep Sky meetings are cancelled until
sufficient interest returns in having the meetings.
7. A.J. also reminded the members that observations of the objects in Ursa
Major listed in the March newsletter are still wanted. Send them to A.J.
for publication in the newsletter column.
8. A.J. then presented awards for the Messier Marathon, held March 20 and
21. He thanked Jack Jones for his assistance in organizing the event and
Cheryl Gambardella for helping with the signs and lights. Several
participants managed to observe all 109 possible objects and a few made a
credible claim of having been clouded out of M30. The awards presented at
the meeting were certificates to Jack Jones and Joan McGue. Cheryl received
a certificate for observing 85 objects. A second place plaque was given to
Paul Lind for 108 observations. First place plaques were given to Matt
Luttinen, Richard Payne and Rick Tejera for the previously mentioned 109.
9. Thad posted a list of the upcoming events
April 10, regular club star party at Flat Iron, sunset at 1859MST
April 24, the semiannual public star party at Thunderbird Park from 1900
to 2200MST
May 7, Regular club meeting, 1930MST, room 105 Fleming Bldg, Grand Canyon
Univ
May 15, regular club star party at Cherry Road, sunset at 1924MST
10. Paul Dickson reminded the members about the mailing lists used by the
club. The information about them is available on the club's web site under
the Novice Information area.
SAC-Announce....club announcements regarding activities
SAC-Forum....general discussion list
SAC-Board....club board member business open to all members to monitor or
participate
AZ-Observing....a mailing list covering all things regarding observing in
Arizona
Information on how to subscribe is available on the web site:
http://www.saguaroastro.com/content/DiscussionLists.htm
11. Gene Lucas announced that the RTMC Astronomy Expo (aka Riverside
Telescope Maker's Conference) will again be held Memorial Day weekend near
Big Bear Lake, California. This is a well-known event, comparable to
Stellafane. It includes a huge swap meet, lots of commercial vendors, talks
all weekend and giveaways including large telescopes. There are also awards
of merit given for homemade telescopes. Camping is almost a necessity
because the nearest lodging is ten miles away and, at this time, may no
longer be available. Go to http://www.rtmcastronomyexpo.org
12. Gene continued to say that the Society for Astronomy Science (formerly
IAPPP) is having their meeting devoted to photometry and imaging on the
Wednesday and Thursday prior to RTMS. He will be giving a talk on asteroid
occultation timing. On the web, go to http://www.socastrosci.org. He also
mentioned that, for those interested, the International Occultation Timing
Association (IOTA), http://www.occultations.org and Minor Planet Mailing
List, http://www.bitnik.com/mp might be useful.
13. Margie Williams reported that Dean Ketelsen had recently had his aortic
valve removed due to an infection. Glen Nishimoto added that he is
convalescing at home and his prognosis is good.
14. Tom Polakis announced that, thanks to the efforts of Peter Argenziano,
he had several compilation books of his Celestial Portrait columns. They
are available for five dollars and any proceeds from the sales will be
donated to the International Darksky Association.
15. Tom also related that the week after the All-Arizona Messier Marathon,
he and (MISSING NAME) observed all 110 Messier objects and all 9 planets
from the Vekol road site. While they were observing, the saw a car or cars
driving up and down the road without headlights. One of the cars stopped
and it turned out to be BLM personnel. Gene Lucas added that it would
probably be a good idea to set up somewhat off of the road to avoid
attracting the attention of other, possibly undesirable, road users.
16. It was also reported (Steve Coe???) that four miles south of the
Sentinal observing site, the BLM has dynamited the road to prevent
"unauthorized" use.
17. Show and Tell
Steve Coe presented the 23 slides he had intended to use for a talk on
binocular viewing, but couldn't due to time constraints.
18. The May general meeting will be May 7 at 1930.
The meeting adjourned at 0500UT.
Thad invited everyone to JB's at 35th Avenue and Northern for food and more
talk.
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