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San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating Over 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach

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San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating Over 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating Over 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach Office (619) 645-8940 July 2011 Observatory (619) 766-9118 http://www.sdaa.org A Non-Profit Educational Association P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215 RILKE: THE POET & ASTRONOMY By John Mood SDAA Business Meeting Next meeting will be held at: My favorite poet all-time is the German language poet Rainer Maria Rilke 3838 Camino del Rio North (1875-1926). I have had books on him published, in which I discuss, among other Suite 300 things, the fact that Rilke has more poetry on the night and the night sky than any San Diego, CA 92108 other. And he does it with great care to make certain his information is accurate. July 12th at 7pm Next Program Meeting Here is a short passage from one book of mine on Rilke to illustrate that and to July 20, 2011 at 7pm stimulate the thinking of others, including amateur astronomers, on this topic. Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor and Interpretive Center Rilke loved the night, and his astronomical images are as accurate as his botani- 1 Father Junipero Serra Trail cal ones [which I had discussed earlier]. He probably wrote more lines of poetry about the night, and the night sky in particular, than any poet in history. One of the very first letters in the original two-volume English edition of his correspondence CONTENTS was to a professional astronomer: Is it not strange that almost all great philosophers and psychologists have July 2011, Vol XLIX, Issue 7 always devoted their attention to the earth and to the earth only? Would it not Published Monthly by the be more sublime to turn ones eyes away from the little clod and to consider San Diego Astronomy Association not a tiny grain of dust in the universe but the universe itself? ---Think, dear $2.50 an issue/$30.00 year sir, how small and insignificant earthly hardships would appear the moment Incorporated in California in 1963 our earth had to shrivel up to the tiniest, whirling, will-less part of an endless Rilke: The Poet & Astronomy..........1 world! July Program Meeting...................2 Strange. Every bird that makes its dwelling under the shelter of the roof June Minutes.................................3 beams first investigates the place it has chosen and over which a part of its A Green Ring Nebula...................4 diminutive life is now to trickle away. And man is quite content to know the Late Spring in the City..............5 earth halfway and scantily, and lets the faraway worlds above wander and July Calendar ......................................8 roam. August Calendar..........................................9 What a remarkable grasp, beautifully worded, of the reality of earth’s place in SDAA Contacts.......................10 the vast scope of the wheeling galaxies of the cosmos, at least 125 billion galaxies Julian Starfest 2011..........11 according to the Hubble Deep Field North and South astrophotos. Even astrono- Finding Planets among the Stars..12 mers rarely think this mind-chilling fact. We use these numbers without thinking. AISIG Gallery...........................................14 A million seconds equals a bit more than eleven days; a billion seconds is more The Back Page...........................................16 than thirty-one years! No, such a grasp is usually achieved (if at all) by only the wisest of humans and then normally only in the twilight of their lives. At the time he wrote these words, Rilke himself was two days from his twentieth birthday! {From A New Reading of Rilke’s “Elegies”: Affirming the Unity of “life-AND- death” (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009), pp. 78f. Also in Rilke on Death and Other Oddities (Philadelphia: Xlibris Coro., 2007), pp. 78f. N.B., I don’t get royalties so this is not a pitch!} San Diego Astronomy Association July Program Meeting San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) sponsors speak- Date: July 20 ers on a wide range of astronomy topics on the third Wednes- Speaker: Dr. William Welsh day of every month at the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Topic: The Kepler Mission Center. The Program meeting begins at 7:00 PM. Each attendee receives one free door prize ticket. After announcements and William (Bill) Welsh is an Associate Professor of Astronomy a small amount of business, the audience is treated to the fea- at San Diego State University. He grew up in Staten Island, tured presentation. At the close of the meeting the door prizes NY, and obtained his undergraduate BS degree in physics and are presented. The event is open to the public. The Mission astronomy from SUNY Stony Brook. He earned his PhD from Trails Regional Park Visitors Center is at One Fr. Junipero Serra the Ohio State University in 1993, doing his thesis research at Trail, San Diego CA 92119. Call the park at 619-668-3281 for the Space Telescope Science Institute. He did his postdoctoral more information or visit http://www.mtrp.org. work at Keele University in England, then at the University of Please contact Bill Carlson ([email protected]) if Texas, where he became a Research Scientist. His early research you have an questions, comments, or ideas for the Program was focused on cataclysmic variables and AGN reverberation Meetings. mapping, but since becoming a faculty member at San Diego State University in 2000 his work has been primarily on transit- ing extrasolar planets. His role in the Kepler Mission is to carry out detailed modeling of the short-period planets that Kepler discovers in order to very accurately measure the physical char- acteristics of the planets and stars, including variations in the times of transits that would indicate the presence of an unseen second planet or moon. Page 2 SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JULY 2011 San Diego Astronomy Association SDAA Board of Directors Monthly Business Meeting Minutes 14 June 2011 Minutes taken by Scott Baker for an absent Brian McFarland. In Attendance: Mike Vander Vorst, President; Bill Carlson, Vice President; Jeff Herman, Corresponding Secretary; Ed Rumsey, Treasurer; Kin Searcy, Director; Scott Baker, Director; and Paul Pountney, Guest. Meeting called to order at 19:04. Minutes from May meeting approved without changes. Priority Business – Paul Pountney reported that a SDAA member had contacted Custom Logos and had a 4X T-shirt and a cap printed with the SDAA logo, without any permission to do so from the SDAA. This was discussed and it was decided that Bill Carlson will contact Custom Logos and inform them that the use of the SDAA logo, without our permission, will not hap- pen again. Paul also was asked to get quotes from Custom Logos and other sources for replenishing the stock of merchandise before StarFest in August. Treasures Report – Approved without changes. Membership Report - +1 Gain in members. Current membership stands at 533. Private Pad Report – The annual warning letter about pad usage to private pad holders that didn’t use their pads the required number of times in the past year did not go out at the first of the year. Due to the lateness of the letter being sent, the Board decided that a “polite reminder” be sent out this year to delinquent pad users. Outreach Report – Kin Searcy reports that there are only a few school star parties left on the books. With the skies being so light in the evenings, in the late spring, most schools can’t have activities that late in the evening. Ken also reports that Bill Griffith will not continue next year as the host for the KQ Ranch star parties and is looking for a replacement volunteer. Program Meetings – Bill Carlson reported that all of the meetings for the remainder of the year have a guest speaker arranged for. Dennis Mammana will be the speaker for June. Ken Searcy reported that he has been having difficulty in reaching the win- ner of the Science Fair so that their award could be presented at a Program Meeting. If all else fails, a check will be mailed to the winner. Weather Station – The newly repaired weather station at TDS is back in operation and updating the SDAA website. AISIG Report – Ken Searcy reports that there has been some difficulty about trying to balance the meeting of the AISIG group topics between beginner imagers and more advanced members. Site Plan – Bill Carlson is still trying to recover the site plan files from his crashed computer. At worse case, backup files can be used but will require about eighty hours of work to bring up to date. Budget Meeting – The annual BoD budget meeting will be held at Ken Searcy’s house on July 5th at 7:00 PM. An allocation of $40 was approved for the purchase of food and refreshments. SDAA Credit Card – Ed Rumsey requested that the recently acquired SDAA credit card credit limit be lowered from $18,000 to $2,000. This was approved by the Board. SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JULY 2011 Page 3 San Diego Astronomy Association Square – Scott Baker requested permission to set up a Square, Credit Card Transaction account on the SDAA Paypal checking account. This will enable the SDAA to take credit card transactions at StarFest and other SDAA events. All that is required is a smartphone and the free CC Reader and application. There is no charge for this service outside of the transaction fee of 2.75%. The Board gave permission for Scott Baker or Michael Finch to setup the account. Annual Audit – Ed Rumsey requested that he be allowed to contact Rick Imbra, Jerry Hilburn and Chuck Sten to do the annual audit of the books.
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