May 2008 |
| ATTENDANCE |
R. Armstrong, M. Arsenault, A. Davis, J. Dunlap, M. Giberson, G. Jones, L. Larkin, C. MacAfee, J. MacDonald,
B. MacNutt, A. McAllister, S. McHatten, C. Nason, P. Jensen, A. Pulido, E. Silva, W. Slaney, B. Spragg, S. Tompkins, C. Trott
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| WHAT'S UP |
Curt covered the things to watch for in the sky over the month.
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| OBSERVING |
June and Curt did an astronomy session at a science fair at Leatherbarrow primary school in Hampton. Peter reported a blank Sun in the solar scope. Curt and Ed O'Reilly saw Comet Boattini, and Curt completed the Messier list with 15x63 binoculars.
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| Famous Observatories |
Peter gave a presentation on the Gemini Observatories in Hawaii and Chile. They are 8.1 metre scopes sensitive in the optical and infrared, time shared by many countries including Canada. They were the first to use a sodium laser for adaptiveoptics. The presentation included videos from their Website on adaptive optics, cleaning the mirrors, and descriptions of the telescopes.
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| SHOW AND TELL |
Peter had a book on asterisms by Raymond and 3 Smart eyepieces.
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| Tides |
George gave a very informative presentation on the physics of tides; why we have two high tides a day, the difference between neap and spring tides. He then expanded tidal forces to Saturn's rings and the Roche Limit, Triton's retrograde spin and Neptune's effect will draw it within the Roche Limit, Io's volcanos caused by tidal stretching, and why it won't be fun to get near a black hole.
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| SJ Solar System walk |
Shawn and Len revived interest in the Harbour Passage and beyond solar system educational walk for 2009, the International Year of Astronomy. Shawn envisioned the Sun being near the info stand by Harbour Station parking, and painting planets on it to the correct relative size. Shawn, Len, Curt, June, Bill, Beth and Candace volunteered to a task force on design.
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| BUSINESS |
Club Scope (Curt by default), PST (Peter). The Cosmic Perspective (Ed O). Backyard Astronomer's Guide (Trevor J.); Peter donated IMAX DVD Destiny in Space (Sonia T. has it), NightWatch (Haylie).
Astronomy Day on May 10 at Brunswick Square. Curt has pamphlets from Astronomy magazine, the LPA box from Ted Dunphy. Curt to contact NB Museum for possibility of talks next year. Len suggested ABEC might still have prints of astrophotos by him and Adrien.
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| ASTRONOMY PICS |
June showed a continued selection of favourite astronomy pictures.
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