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Location: Chemistry/Physics Building, MUN
Time: 8:00 pm
Present: 20
Garry gave his introduction. October is the AGM. Garry thanked all the members who showed up to help out for International Astronomy Day on Saturday. We had 11 scopes, plus Greg Baggs had one with a display. Joe English had a scope the right height for the kids. The PST got the most ooohs and aahs with the views of the sun's prominences.
The Centre is thinking about getting another scope for members to borrow. We will be sending around a questionnaire. Should we get a bigger scope, for example, 8 inches? Should it be a GOTO? Etc.
Chapters has a good selection of observing books, normally they have general information books.
This occurred later in the meeting, but is more logically placed here.
Joe English has RASC Calendars for sale for $15.
Next Thursday, September 27, at 7:30 pm there will be a lecture by Dr. David Mermen on "'Spooky' Action at a Distance". This is a MUN sponsored event, but many members may find it of interest.
Tonight and repeating on Sunday, PBS will be showing "Seeing in the Dark" with Tim Ferris. This will focus on the work that amateur astronomers do. Tim Ferris is a noted author (eg. "Redshift").
Ben related how three years ago he had observed Neptune when it was close to Venus. In the last few months he has been tracking Neptune near the tail of Capricornus. He is saving for a larger scope. In response to a question regarding the colour of Neptune, he replied it was a faint blueish-green. These observations were made with a Meade 200C.
Randy showed us the "secret project" he has helped for the past few years. The web site is http://mytelescope.com . There are several scopes of 10 inch aperture, with plans to expand the sites and the telescopes. Much of the design and software for the mounting system was done here in St. John's. Originally, there was an attempt to use the mounts that came with the commercial scopes, but they were found to be inadequate for remote observation. Randy gave us a tour of the site.
Randy represented us at the GA this year. The 2009 GA promises to be quite interesting. It will be the first GA where there will be official observing events.
Randy introduced members to the Centre's new Facebook group here. He gave us a guided tour of some of the features of Facebook, and of our new group. When signing up, be careful that you check over the privacy page and who you want Facebook to be sharing your information with. You should be careful with your profile information, particularly any personal information. Depending on how you configure Facebook, all of your information/pictures can be found with a regular Google search. At the very least, other Facebook members can have access. The group Randy formed (right now he is the admin) is an open group, so please join and try it out! Events and outings can be posted. Also for relatively small sums of money, people in similar groups can see and ad for your event. Randy placed one experimentally for the Butterpot Star Party that potentially 20,000 people could have seen.
Robert gave a report on the Centre's summer activities, which were busier than usual. The Butterpot Star Party (BSP) was clouded out this year, but members had fun making solar filters.
Sessions:
Robert showed us some pictures of IAD. There were between 75-100 visitors between 5 and 10 pm. A total of 11 scopes were available for viewing, plus Gregg Baggs provided a scope with a live feed to a TV. Joe English's shorter scope proved popular with the kids. Due to the building and parking lot lights, the site was not the darkest, but proved adequate to our needs. Views of the sun were also provided with the PST.
Robert had a handout covering the sky over the next month. He discussed the visibility of Mars, Saturn, meteor showers, and the other planets. Finally, with no filtering, we were shown a picture of M27 taken at Butterpot versus its counterpart taken from Mt. Pearl with the same exposure. The effects of light pollution were dramatic.
Garry gave us a tour of how imaging technology has improved since he started taking shots with a camera. Typical of what can be done now were Tim's shots of Jupiter taken between August 15-21 at http://www.sji.ca/rasc/photos/planets-11-jupiter-tc.html .
Next we were shown a shot Garry took of Jupiter in 1984, followed by a shot of the impact of the G and F fragments of comet Shoemake-Levy in 1994. There is simply no comparing these pictures with Tim's. Of course, Garry didn't have the ability to digitally sample fractions of a second in the time domain, pick clear images, and then stack and process the results.
A similar comparison was shown between Robert's M31 image at http://www.sji.ca/rasc/photos/deep-sky-18-rb.html and Garry's photographic try. There was no comparing Robert's 5 minute unprocessed, digital exposure, and Garry's 10 minute guided effort. The galaxy was not really visible in Garry's image.
Finally, Garry showed us a striking picture of Cabot tower with Hale Bopp in the background. Unfortunately, the comet didn't show very well.
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