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Location: Chemistry/Physics Building, MUN
Time: 8:00 pm
Present: 14
1. Randy's Intro. (Fred has the flu.) A meeting is scheduled for the Butter Pot Project. Dennis Ryan is moving to the mainland. Brian Payton's wife has passed away. Brian is our Past-President.
Randy talked a bit about Mir and its re-entry. Venus is really bright and high. Ben has been tracking it. Ben brought up the notion of whether Pluto should really be classified as a planet. Randy: the sun's magnetic poles have flipped (solar max).
Election of Observing Chair replacement. Garry Dymond nominated Robert Babb. Elected by Acclamation.
It was noted the warm-up lodge is being used by the ski club all the time, so we should be careful with scope security (it is at Robert's house now, anyway).
Randy on potential astronaut visit. Canadian Space Agency wants $3500 for expenses unless they are already on a scheduled visit. Looks like the only way this can be afforded is to share costs with other groups.
2. Garry on What's Up. Friday is a new moon. On the 27th a binocular comet is due west of Vega. Ben on Titan. Garry: Around March 12th there is a two week period best for viewing the zodiacal light. You need really dark skies. Describes what to look for. Tues. the 13th will have a double shadow transit on Jupiter. (And also March 27th.) March 11: Mercury will be at greatest eastern elongation. We will look into having a Messier Marathon then.
Robert passed around a sheet containing the Messier coordinates he generated on his computer, so we can get in some practice.
3. Grinding and Testing a Telescope Mirror. This is where your's truly discusses the subject. You can find most of the talk at http://home.thezone.net/~dbourgeo or at an alternate link from our Centre web site. Members were encouraged to do some grinding with the provided 8-inch blank (rats, I was hoping to sucker enough people into finishing it off!). Chris was also kind enough to bring in his f/5 BVC 18-inch blank. Large, black glass is way cool....
4. Coffee.
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Please send any additions or corrections to:
David Bourgeois: mailto:dbourgeo@nl.rogers.com