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Location: Chemistry/Physics Building, MUN

Time: 8:00 pm

Present: 22

1. Randy's Introduction. Feel free to ask the executive for help or bring suggestions (eg. meeting topics). We will be running a course in conjunction with MUN's Division of Life-long Learning.

2. Observing. Chris Stevenson was out January 4 with his brother looking at Deep Sky and the Quadrantids. Ray Will: Saturn, saw one meteor on Jan. 4. Venus is really bright.

3. Garry Dymond. Garry saw his first (red) sun pillars. He has a picture that has to come back from the developers. It is a bit odd to see red pillars. He has been playing around with his new CCD camera, particularly with Jupiter and Saturn. His pictures came from many (upwards of 100 most often) images, each exposed for 1/25 second, taken with his C8. Images were stacked and processed. He even has a 10 second movie of Jupiter! Also taken, a 30 second exposure of M51. Right now he is only learning how to use his new camera, but Chris and myself noted that the images compared favorably with similar ones taken by CCD in this month's Sky and Telescope.

4. Gary Case. What's Up. Saturn is near the Crab Nebula, and Jupiter's red spot has been getting darker since the summer. Gary also gave an overview of things that should be visible over the next month.

5. Topical News from the Web. Chris Stevenson brought us to one of his favourite sites on the web: http://www.spaceflightnow.com. Chris noted there are a couple of news items that have a Canadian connection. Also, a lot of news has come out in the past week, thanks to papers presented recently at the AAS.

• There is a Canadian connection with the discovery of three new moons around Neptune: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0301/14moons/.
• The Moon may have had a big burp in its past, possibly explaining why Apollo moon rocks indicated magnetism: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0301/11moonburp/.
• First Trojan satellite discovered for Neptune: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0301/09trojan/.
• Earth has a satellite playing a cat and mouse game: There is a Canadian connection with this asteroid. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0301/03asteroid/
• Rho Cassiopeia is a hypergiant that may soon go nova, with a faint chance of going supernova. Amateurs can get involved in monitoring: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0301/12hypergiant/
• Also, Debra Tigner of the Ottawa Centre discovered an extra-galactic supernova: 2002JZ. This was discovered December 23. [Details can be found at : http://www.supernovae.net/supernova.html.]

6. What We Got for Christmas. Members spoke briefly about some of the goodies they got for Christmas. It was noted you can get the "Backyard Observer" at Costco for $29.

7. Coffee.

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David Bourgeois

This document was generated using AFT v5.0793 and Vim on: Fri Jan 17 15:48:02 NST 2003