[sac-board] SAC Meeting Minutes: 2010/06/25

From: Paul Dickson <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: SAC-Board <sac-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 9 Jul 2010 02:38:28 -0700
The meeting was started at 1934 by Tom Polakis, as acting president and with 
his voice in bad shape.  He stated "If Dick misses a third meeting, I'll be 
president".  I'm sure we will be happy to elect Tom as president for next year.

Upcoming events have the regular and dark of the moon star parties now being 
held at the Cherry Rd site.  We also have the ATM meetings on the Tuesday 
preceding the regular meeting.  Contact Paul Lind for more info.

Tom also listed speakers through October, with the July meeting being a 
Show-'n'-Tell meeting for club members.  A PowerPoint presentation or 
slide-show of images is not necessary.

Steve Dodder then reminded us about the 50/50 raffle.  He then did a wrap-up on 
the Grand Canyon Star Party at the North Rim.  Of the 8 nights, 6 were amazing, 
and two those were even better.  The last Saturday had rain, hail, sleet and 
snow in June!

Next year, the grand canyon Star Party will be June 18-25.

Steve also remind us about the Novice Group session he holds south of Maricopa. 
 The sessions are driven by the new telescope user's needs.  The should contact 
Steve to setup a session.

Tom Polakis let us know that the Mt Graham trip has been canceled due to the 
loss of Forest Service permits.  Those who have paid should contact Jennifer 
Polakis about getting your payment back.

Rick Tejera reported that due to computer issues, the May and June issue have 
been combined and was now available.

Gene Lucas reported on a notice he receive from MAG (Maricopa Association of 
Governments) about input for dark-sky ordinance.  The meeting way July 6, in 
the afternoon.

Tom Polakis the showed a series of images, including Comet McNaught from June 
8, 9, and 10, the current state of the Discovery Telescope, Grand Canyon Star 
Party an from the Kaibab meadow.

The meeting took a break at 20:30 to go out and watch the fly-over of the 
International Space Station, which passed overhead.  About 20 people watched 
the flyby.

The meeting restarted at 20:49 with Tom introducing Emilio Falco from Whipple 
Observatory.  His presentation was about the MEarth (pronounced like mirth) 
project, whose aim is to discover exoplanets around M dwarf stars using eight 
robotically controlled 16-inch telescopes.  More information about the project 
may be found at http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~zberta/mearth.  M-type stars were 
chosen as the planets would have shorter orbital periods to look for possible 
transits.  Some of issues they face included ringtails that like walking on the 
mirrors leaving paw prints and ladybugs blocking openings from time to time.

        -Paul Dickson
[sac-board] SAC Meeting Minutes: 2010/06/25

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