B.C.A.A.S. MEETING MINUTES
May 8, 2003
The meeting was called to order by President Ron Kunkel at 7:25 PM. There were 36 attendees. Secretary Barb Geigle noted that there were no outstanding issues from the April meeting and that copies of the April General and Board meetings are available. Treasurer Linda Sensenig was out, but had informed Ron there is a balance of $8,298.
Sky Report: Ron advised that the mutual events of Jupiter’s moons are still occurring, and Jupiter and Saturn are both high in the sky for viewing. Larry Citro noted that there are a lot of galaxies to be seen now, especially in the constellation of Leo.
Old Business: Ron thanked all those that participated in Earth Day. The club had 3 telescopes set up for solar observing and there were just enough people to handle the tables and scopes. The weather was great and thousands attended. The Mercury transit was fogged out.
Upcoming Events and New Business: There will be 2 public star watches at the Berks County Heritage Center in May. May 9 at 7:30 will be a regular star watch with a talk and observing. On May 15, at 8:00 p.m. there will be a lunar eclipse watch. The annual Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) is May 17 and 18 in Suffren, New York. There will be a Board meeting on May 22 at Paul Becker’s home at 7:00. On Friday, May 23, there will be a star party and talk at Blue Ball Elementary at 7:30 p.m. Volunteers are needed as a large crowd is expected. The Mason-Dixon Star Party is Friday, May 30 through Sunday, June 1 at Codorus State Park; the pre-registration deadline is May 15. On Friday, June 6 there will be a star party for the girl scouts at Cam Wood Haven, near Pine Grove. Our next General Meeting will be June 12, and will feature Peter Detterline discussing the Mars Team. On Saturday, June 14, there is an ASH bus trip to the Hayden Planetarium in New York. Anyone interested should contact Ron. August 29, 30 and 31 is the Black Forest Star Party in Potter County. This year attendance will be limited to the first 300, so Ron recommended registering at the website (www.bfsp.org) as soon as possible, as over 600 people attended last year. There will be a star party at Hawk Mountain on August 23.
Larry Citro’s gadget of the month talk featured the Philips TOUcam, which is a webcam that has a CCD chip and is great for planetary imaging. There is free software that can be downloaded from the web, particularly the K3 CCD image acquisition program and Registax can be used for processing the images. The June 2003 issue of “Sky and Telescope” magazine, page 117, has an article that gives more details. He noted that Mars will appear about half the size of Jupiter this summer, and that the best seeing is usually the day after a frontal system goes through.
The program tonight was Extrasolar Planets and HST by Inge Heyer from the Space Telescope Institute. As usual, her program was humorous and informative.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Geigle, Secretary