Speaker
| The next meeting of the Richmond Astronomical Society will be held at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, September 14 at the Science Museum of Virginia. Jeff Pike will be presenting on “Dark Flow.” |
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Events
We’ll have an 8 day old Moon that will display Mt Hadley (Apollo 15′s base), Crater Triesnecker and its interesting rilles, and also the unusual “Alpine Valley” might be seen. Some classic binaries such as Epsilon Lyra and Alpha Hercules will be out as well. We should see Neptune. It has been about one “Neptune” year (= 165 Earth yrs) since discovery by Galle, LeVerrier and Adams in 1846. Bring and share personal telescopes if you like. See the “observatory” page for directions.
John Barnett, Obs. Director
Sydney asked her dad Mark (one of our members) if they could build a telescope. They are doing just that and have set up a web site to chronicle their adventure here. Mark has also set up an email address for comments/suggestions: sydney.telescope.blog@gmail.com. It looks like they are going to have loads of fun with this project and have already made a lot of progress. We look forward to the next update. Be sure to stop by their blog and say hello.
I just added a new link to our web page, in the rightmost column, under Categories. To use it, once you open an article for reading, just click on the Share button. This will take you to a page where you can select a social network to share it with.
If you go outside tonight (June 17), or the next few nights, you’ll see the Moon very close to Mars, and moving toward Saturn. Here’ the view on June 16. As the nights go by, the Moon will move to the left.
This is a science fiction convention that I’ve been trying to get to for about three years. I think this is the year I’m actually going to make it. If you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan, the guests this year are going to make you delirious.
We’re less than two months away from Shore Leave 32, so here’s a reminder that pre-registration for Shore Leave 32 should be postmarked by June 15, 2010 to be accepted at the weekend rate of $80.00 for adults and $20.00 for children ages 5-12. After that, memberships will be sold at the door. Cancellations will be honored until July 1, 2010. We cannot guarantee any refunds after that date.
RAS had three telescopes at the Westover Hills Library last night, to help them celebrate Yuri’s Night-an annual worldwide party to celebrate Yuri Gagarin’s first flight into space–as well as to promote space exploration. The library highlighted many books on astronomy and space celebration, and held events for the younger kids to celebrate the night. We saw many home made flying saucers around our telescopes later in the night.
RAS tries to motivate students to learn about astronomy in several different ways. In addition to holding many skywatches with schools and scouting groups, we also hand out money at one of the bigger science fairs: The Metro Richmond Science Fair. This fair draws students from the greater Richmond area, and usually ends up with two or three hundred projects.
Wow, we got quite a bonus at the Science Museum last night. At the beginning of our monthly skywatch, we might see a crowd of 30 or 40 people gathered around the Kugel, waiting for us to set up our telescopes. But, as I pulled up to the entrance last night, I saw a group of about 100 people standing there. And the driveway was full of buses. It turns out that the Science Museum was hosting part of this year’s 2010 FIRST Robotics competition. So, kids had come in from all over the place, including other states.
June Meeting Minutes
Richmond Astronomical Society
729th Consecutive Meeting
June 8, 2010
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Jim Browder called our meeting to order in the Eureka room. This meeting was going to have a different format – business first, the main presentation, and then after the break, the short talk.
Greeting & Announcements – approximately 43 in attendance at the meeting.
Please check the link to our RAS blog: http://richastro.org/index.php/category/blog/
Share table:
Jim Browder is a celebrity. Jim displayed an ad for Astronomy Technology, and showed us a photo of him, but it’s a small photo in the lower corner of the ad.
There were several items for sale, including a few eyepieces by John Raymond.
There were a few photos for anyone to look at.
A license plate holder that goes on the back of a car was on the table. It was a recent purchase from the RAS Café Press store. The shop can be found at http://www.cafepress.com/RichAstroShop .
Past Events:
Science Museum Skywatch was a success on May 21.
Ken Wilson talked about sighting Comet McNaught in the SE sky.
Terry Barker and others mentioned the pairing of Mars and Venus close to each other.
Upcoming Events:
The next Science Museum Skywatch/LiveSky show is June 18. Please sign-up if you are available to attend and bring a scope.
Skywatch at Willow Oaks Country Club on Friday June 11. Rain date is July 9.
Cub Scout Twilight Camp at Fairfield Prebyterian Church on Tuesday June 22. Rain date is June 25.
ECVAR (East Coast Video Astronomy Rendevous) in Luray, Virginia on June 10-13. Please see http://sites.google.com/site/ecvar2010/ for more information.
Green Bank StarQuest in Green Bank, WV on July 7-10. Please see http://www.greenbankstarquest.org/ for more information.
Dues announcement:
Annual dues are due and should be given to Jim Blowers. Membership is $30. Observatory memberships and magazine subscriptions increase the amount.
Payment can be made by PayPal at http://richastro.org/ras_payments.htm
Observatory Report (John Barnett)
John Barnett will be hosting an open house for members and guests on Wednesday, June 16th at 8:30pm. On the 15th, he will email a weather advisory and a reminder to all members. Contact Jim Blowers to update your email address if it has changed.
Library Report was not given. The RAS library was moved out of the RAS recently. At this time, it is in public storage with controlled atmospheric conditions. An effort is in progress to find a long-term location where RAS members can easily access the library contents.
June’s Presentation: “News in the World of Weather Forecasting” by John Bernier
John Bernier spoke about many aspects of the weather affecting our lives and environment. He started off his presentation by asking about a very active political topic: “Climate Change – Fact? Fiction? Fantasy?” He used the beliefs of Al Gore to take the side of there is global warming, Ken Cuchinelli to side with no global warming, and Sargent Schultz (from Hogan’s Heroes) to take the middle ground using Schultz’s well-known line of “I know nothing!”. Very effective!
Since the dawn of time, we have had 7 ice ages, where the warmer periods have lasted longer than the colder periods. Sometime during the warmer periods, it has been warm enough for the dinosaurs to venture up to the Arctic.
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