Table of Contents May AAC General Meeting No Summer AAC Meetings
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
TTThehehe FFFTheocalocalocal Atlanta Astronomy Club PPPointointoint Vol. 29 No. 12Established 1947 Editor: Tom Faber May 2017 Table of Contents No Summer AAC Meetings Page 1... May General Meeting, No Summer Meetings, DAV Picnic Due to a decision made by the AAC Board of Directors earlier this year, Page 2... April Meeting Report and Photos the Atlanta Astronomy Club will not hold meetings during the summer months of June, July, and August. This decision was made due to low Page 3... Next CEA Meeting, President’s Desk, Ga Astronomers Mtg attendance at the summer meetings and the difficulty in finding speakers Page 4... Historic Refractor Moving to Arkansas for the summer months. So the next meeting of the Atlanta Astronomy Page 5... Astronomy Day at the Tellus Science Museum Club will be in September at a time and location to be announced. The Charlie Elliott Astronomy chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club will Page 6... Hubble Images Galaxy Cluster Abell 370 hold meetings during the summer and have observing after their meetings, Page 7... AAC Online, Memberships, Contact Info weather permitting. AAC members are encouraged to attend these Page 8... Calendar, AAC List Serv Info, Focal Point Deadline meetings. The CEA summer meetings will be on Saturday June 24, July 22, and August 19. Also, since the new moon is now starting to occur around the 3rd weekend of the month, to avoid conflicting with other events held on new moon May AAC General Meeting weekends, starting in September the monthly meetings of the AAC will move to the second Saturday of the month. The September meeting At The Fernbank Science Center will be held on Saturday, September 9th. Be sure to check the AAC Please join us for the next general meeting of the Atlanta Astronomy Club, web page for possible observing or public outreach events during the to be held on Saturday, May 20th at 3PM at the Fernbank Science Center. summer months. A short beginner’s astronomy program will be presented at 2PM. Our The AAC is not planning any official events for the August 21 solar featured speaker will be Steven Brazeale. Steven will present a talk about eclipse since many of the club officers and members will be traveling out of Science Fiction. town to observe the eclipse from the path of totality. The Talk Because of not having meetings during the summer, the Focal Point will Steven writes: “My presentation asks the question: What is Science not be published during the summer months either. The next issue of the Fiction? And what are some of the ways it has shaped all our lives.” Focal Point will be the September issue, which will be published in late August or early September. Have a great summer, enjoy the eclipse, and Our Speaker clear skies! Steven Brazeale is a lifelong reader. He cut his teeth on Heinlein, Asimov, Le Guin, and Clark. But that’s not all. He also invents imaginary people in Deerlick Astronomy Village Memorial his head. He also writes. His first novel, Rosetta, (written under his pen name Stephen Patterson) is a dystopian, science fiction tale. Steve is a Weekend Picnic trained Mathematician and a hardworking industrialist by day. He makes The annual picnic at Deerlick Astronomy Village will be held on Sunday, his home in Atlanta and enjoys the many activities of its vibrant science May 28th, 2017 at 5 PM. Please join us for a great potluck meal and enjoy community. free camping under the stars afterwards. Atlanta Astronomy Club members For additional meeting information go to www.meetup.com/Atlanta- should be sure to check out the AAC clubhouse & observatory on the astronomy-club-meetup/ field. This event is open to anyone interested in stargazing under the dark skies at DAV. No membership is required. Please join us for this very interesting and informative talk. All Astronomy club meetings are free and open to the public. For more information on the The picnic will be held in the Grier’s Field pavilion in Deerlick Astronomy Club go to www.atlantaastronomy.org Village, located at the end of Aaron Grier Road near Sharon, GA. If you would like to bring a tent or RV, camping is free on Sunday night. There will be a $5 camping fee per person per night for those who would like to arrive early and camp on Friday or Saturday night. A full bath house is located on site. For more details, driving directions, and potluck sign-up, go to http://bit.ly/DAVpicnicRSVP. Contact Marie at [email protected] if you have any questions. Page 1 April AAC Meeting Report Photos by Tom Faber unless noted The April AAC general meeting was held on Saturday, April 15th at the AFS Building in Smyrna. AAC President Mark Banks presented a talk titled “The Drake Equation, Then & Now.” Mark talked about astronomer Frank Drake and postulated his famous equation in 1960 and what it says about the possibility of life on other worlds and the possibility of intelligent beings elsewhere in our galaxy. After the program, club officers then announced upcoming AAC events and activities. Then some of us went to a nearby restaurant for late dinner and more conversations. Page 2 The Next Charlie Elliott Meeting From the President’s Desk Meeting Details By Mark Banks, AAC President Our March meeting was a great success. We partnered with Northrop “Who needs remote control?” Grumman and The Atlanta Science Festival for our program about the Lloyd Smith of Deep Sky West will be joining us for our May meeting on James Webb Space Telescope. We hope to have similar future collabora- May 27, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. to talk about the benefits and advantages, as tions to help us educate the public and encourage the next generation of well as the trials and tribulations, of remote observatories. There are quite science nerds. a few of us that take advantage of remote capabilities from a few feet away Meeting space: We are seeking a new place to have our monthly meeting. just so we can sit closer to our heaters on Jon Wood Astronomy Field in We would like to find a place that would enable us to meet in the evening the Winter Months. There are also those who leverage full-blown remote around 7PM and then set up scopes for stargazing after the meeting. observatories and imaging rigs at prime dark sky locations. Anyone who may have any ideas or suggestions about a good place to Lloyd Smith designed the Deep Sky West facilities which reside under dark meet should contact any club officer and let us know. skies near Rowe, New Mexico. Lloyd is also closely involved in managing Elections: Club elections are coming up in May. If you want to run for the imaging system operations of Deep Sky West. Lloyd’s interest in office or would like to nominate someone please contact any club officer. astronomy started in the early 1970’s following the United States’ All positions are available so don't hesitate. The club is what the members missions to the moon and he was also fortunate to have a supportive make it and you can get involved with the leadership. teacher who facilitated visits to the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia. His teacher also supported his interest in visual astronomy. Lloyd acquired a C8 after college and, after a few career accomplishments, Lloyd Georgia Regional Astronomers Meeting found himself involved in astrophotography with an AstroPhysics Mach 1 mount, a Takahashi FSQ-106 telescope, and a QSI683wsg-8 which he still All members of the Atlanta Astronomy Club are invited to the next uses today. If you would like to see Lloyd Smith’s images, you can find Georgia Regional Astronomy Meeting (GRAM) to be held Friday and them here. Saturday, October 27 and 28, at the University of Georgia in Athens. The event is free and there is no registration fee. That weekend’s UGA football Even if remote observatories and astrophotography aren’t up your alley, game with Florida will be in Jacksonville, Florida, so traffic and parking in you’ll more than likely find something in this presentation that can be Athens will be light. applied to your particular area of focus in amateur astronomy. Be prepared to leave the meeting having learned something new! Also participating will be members of the Assn of Lunar & Planetary Observers, who will present several papers and hold an awards dinner on My sincerest apologies to The Clash… Saturday evening to which all are invited. Check here for updates: http://ceastronomy.org/blog/home The GRAM event will begin with an informal get-together on Friday All of the Above! evening at the UGA Physics Building and observing through UGA’s 24- inch telescope also located there (weather permitting). Charlie Elliott Astronomy Observing Supervisor Extraordinaire David Whalen will give a short talk about what you can expect to see in the sky Papers on various aspects of astronomical research, education and amateur this month with binoculars and small telescopes, as well as the monthly topics will be presented at the Physics Building from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. observing challenge. If you’ve been to one of our meetings, you know that Those with table-top poster presentations are also invited to set them up. David is an exciting and engaging speaker and always delivers a lot of great The ALPO awards dinner will be held at the UGA Center for Continuing information with plenty of laughs. Education & Hotel from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., and feature Professor of Astronomy at UGA, Dr.