RichmondAstronomical Society
747th Consecutive Meeting
December 13, 2011
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Jim Browder called our meeting to order in a room off of the rotunda.
Greeting & Announcements – approximately 41 in attendance at the meeting.
Please check the link to our RAS blog: http://richastro.org/index.php/category/blog/
Annual dues are due. $30 for a regular membership; $10 more to be an observatory operator: discount subscriptions are available to Sky & Telescope and Astronomy. You can pay by check to Jim Blowers or by PayPal at this link:
http://richastro.org/ras_payments.htm
If you joined our organization after July 1, your dues payment will be applied to next year.
The 2012 Board of Directors and 2012 Officers have been elected:
Board of Directors: Jim Blowers, Jim Browder, Gary Cowardin, Chris McCann, David P. Medici, Bill Newman, Prashant Reddy, Tim Streagle, David Walton, Betty Wilson, Ken Wilson
Officers: Jim Browder, President; David Medici, Vice-President; Chris McCann, Secretary; Jim Blowers, Treasurer
Congratulations to Betty Wilson:
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Division has designated asteroid 84991 (2003 YM94) for Betty Philpotts Wilson at the request of the discoverer – Rik Hill of the Catalina Sky Survey. The orbital information and citation are available at this link:
http://ssd .jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi#top
Share Table
A lot of good food!!
Library Report – none
Events and Individual Observing Recent Events:
- Heart of Virginia Fall Star Party and school skywatches.
- Individual observing
- Observatory maintenance
Upcoming Events:
- Science Museum Skywatch, December 16: Please sign up if you can bring a telescope. More information is at http://smv.org/events.html. The theme of the LiveSky event will be ‘Hollywoodin Space.” Come and see what they did right and what they did wrong. If you have a chance, please have a look at the promotional video by theScienceMuseumon the RAS web site.
- January RAS meeting, January 10: We will have as our special guests a group of fourth graders fromRidgeElementary SchoolinHenricoCountyalong with their parents and teachers. The students will be presenting some recent special projects in astronomy and space science. These should be very special evening. Please join us if you can.
Visitor and New Member Welcome:
There were several visitors. Two of our visitors were first time visitors – Cierra and Wallace Bracey. Cierra is interested in astronomy and wants to study it at U.Va.
Our other visitors, Dee Remmick, Karen Streagle, Marie Barnett, and Anne Blowers are spouses of some of our regular members.
Short Talk:
Tim Streagle had a very humorous photo show, showing people and their telescopes. It was great seeing several of our members and their “collections of equipment” that they bring to the skywatches.
Potluck Dinner
Presentation: Astro-Jeopardy, Leslie Bochenski
After our potluck dinner, we were divided up into 4 teams and played a friendly and lively game of astronomy Jeopardy
Thank you to all who donated food for our potluck dinner! Lots of delicious food and friendly conversation was a great way to end 2011.
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Reminders:
The next RAS meeting will be Tuesday, January 10th at the SMV.
The next board meeting will be Monday, February 20 at Extra Billy’s at 7:00 PM (arrive earlier for dinner). Meeting is open to all members.
Check out the web site at http://www.richastro.org/
RAS Café Press store. Please take a look at the online store where you can purchase items embossed with the RAS label. The site can be found at http://www.cafepress.com/RichAstroShop .