Charlie Elliott Chapter Meeting Minutes
 Saturday, July 7, 2007

See photos and additional information about the meeting here.
 

ATTENDANCE:

Twenty-six guests and members attended the July Charlie Elliott Chapter meeting.

BUSINESS:

Director, Larry Owens, showed images and discussed the progress of the 16-inch truss tube project, he also presented the status of the equipment list of the ‘baby sitter’ program.

He reminded volunteers the CE Summer Camp program would take place Wednesday, July 11, 2007 at CE.  Jon Wood will give the feature presentation assisted by Clevis Jones.  Steve Bieger and Theo Ramakers volunteered to set up telescopes on the observing field for the observing portion of the program.  THANKS VOLUNTEERS!

As a compliment to the August Feature presentation, Philip Sacco on Astronomical Mythology, Larry announced that the August meeting will be a TOGA PARTY – official dress is a toga!  Information on toga’s and how to make therm are here:

http://www.howtomakeatoga.info/

and here

http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soc-dress.html

Come on, synch up your courage (and loin cloth) and join the fun!

Larry announced the future meetings:

August 18 meeting: Philip Sacco, “Birds of a Feather: The Lovers Triangle”.

September meeting: Fred Buls on Super Bright Super Nova – LOCATION CHANGE to Perimeter Campus north of Mansfield (directions will be posted on the CE Web-site).

October meeting: by Patrick Durusau (and back to the CE visitor’s center).

November meeting: Dr. Richard Schmude on Mars (Mars close approach is in December).

SUNSET ALERT was given.

2007 remaining schedule for the CE Meetings is:

August 18, September 15, October 6 (note: Peach State on the 13^th), November 3 (back to 3 p.m. for the winter), December 15.

FEATURE PRESENTATION:

Jon Wood presented, “The Ultimate Home Observatory”.  Talk about whetting your appetite!!!  Jon discussed why even have an observatory, and showed all kinds of home observatory ideas.  Lots of audience questions and discussions took place. His program was a tour de force from the practical to the unique, expensive to inexpensive, including Ken Poshedly’s album of the construction of his observatory.

Visions galore … Thanks Jon!

What’s Up Tonight

Steve Bieger covered upcoming events, interesting objects in Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, and Scorpius. In the Observing Techniques portion, he covered lots of eyepiece, magnification, field-of-view, and preparation information.  In his Featured Science section, Steve gave us a preview of his Project Galileo, which is quite involved and taking form as the anniversary of Galileo’s achievements approaches. Thanks Steve!

Current Events

Clevis Jones covered the 7-7-7-7 aphelion, the June 30 near-miss (as seen from Earth) of Saturn and Venus (including what it looked like to the Minutemen back on April 19, 1775 … well, Venus and Jupiter for them).  He showed recent images of the astounding changes taking place on Jupiter – asking Larry Owens to comment on his images of Jupiter. And he covered the return of Shuttle Atlantis (STS-117), Shuttle Endeavour’s (yes it is the English spelling as the Shuttle is named after HMS Endeavour) August launch carrying the first Educator Astronaut, Mars Rover Opportunity’s delayed trip into Victoria Crater due to the dust storm, the forthcoming launch of NASA’s Dawn probe to Ceres and Vesta, and the AIM mission to study Noctilucent Clouds – with music. That woke ‘em up <Grin>

OBSERVING SESSION:

The sky did not cooperate.

MEETING DATES AND PROGRAMS:

August 18 at 5:00 p.m. - TOGA PARTY

– dress code is a toga, http://www.howtomakeatoga.info/ , http://www.roman-empire.net/society/soc-dress.html

Feature Presentation: Philip Sacco presents, “Birds of a Feather: The Lovers Triangle”.  Please join author Philip Sacco for an entertaining mythology lecture.  Philip will also offer a trivia challenge during the lecture and will reveal the story of a "mystery" constellation on the observing field later that night.  ALL AGES welcome.  Then, What’s up Tonight by Steve Bieger and Current Events by Clevis Jones, followed by Observing on the field, weather permitting.  Note - for the observing, a change from togas is optional <grin>

Place: Charlie Elliott Visitor's Center

September Meeting: September 18,  5:00 p.m.

Feature Presentation – Fred Buls on Super Bright Super Nova.

FOR UPDATES & DIRECTIONS & LIVE broadcasts: PLEASE check the CEastronomy website for the most current meeting information !

http://www.CEastronomy.org

Submitted:

Clevis Jones, CE Recording Secretary  Secretary@CEastronomy.org
 

Last Updated Saturday, July 14, 2007