Richmond Astronomical Society
730th Consecutive Meeting
July 13, 2010
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Jim Browder called our meeting to order in the Eureka room.
Greeting & Announcements – approximately 25 in attendance at the meeting.
Please check the link to our RAS blog: http://richastro.org/index.php/category/blog/
Share table:
There were several items for sale, including a few eyepieces by John Raymond.
There were a few photos for anyone to look at.
Past Events:
Science Museum Skywatch was held on June 18. Thanks to everyone who helped out. With the number of people that came out, it was good to see we had enough scopes to handle the crowd.
Green Bank Star Quest
Outreach events
Upcoming Events:
The next Science Museum Skywatch/LiveSky show is July 16. Please sign-up if you are available to attend and bring a scope.
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, July th at 8:30pm. 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.
Short talk
“DeepImpact – The Prequel” by Dwight Talley
Break – –
June’s Presentation: “Dark Skies, Bright Kids” by Gail Zasowski, Ryan Lynch, and Nicole Gugliucci, UVA Astronomy graduate students
The program enhances science education at rural schools. The graduate students have put a great deal of their personal time and effort into the program, working with elementary school kids in the area.
Well, there is a way we can help them. The graduate students and faculty have created a children’s astronomy book and are working hard to put a copy of the book in every third grade classroom and school library in Virginia. To fund the work, they have applied for a Pepsi Refresh grant of $25,000. The grant will be awarded to the project that receives the most online votes.
Please consider registering at the Pepsi Refresh site and voting:
http://www.refresheverything.com/darkskiesbrightkids
People register once and then can vote once a day, every day, through September 30th. If you think this is a worthy effort, please vote early and often and spread the word to anyone you think may be interested. The Dark Skies, Bright Kids folks very much appreciate our support and in, my opinion, are very deserving of that support.
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Reminders:
The next RAS meeting will be Tuesday, August 10th at the SMV.
The next board meeting will be Monday, August 16 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/
Virginia Skylines: Be sure to check out the latest version of Virginia Skylines on our web site. Virginia Skylines is a weekly podcast written by Leslie Bochenski, astronomy educator with the Science Museum and Thomas Jefferson High School.
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 .