SOUTH SHORE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

Monthly Meeting

January 4, 2006

 

MINUTES

 

1. A very interesting presentation by Steve LaFlamme about his observations and imaging of various astronomical objects including the “The 10th Planet”

 

Business Meeting

 

Old Business

 

1. Paul Grueter made a presentation about the club’s Web Site update, Search Engine and Bulletin Board

 

2.  Reminder that Viewing nights are Jan. 7th & 28th starting around sunset

 

3.  Planets on Jan 7th Mercury – Sets 3:30pm, Venus – Sets 5:27pm, Mars – Sets 2:24am Next Morning, Jupiter-Not visible till 2:00 Next Morning, Saturn – Rises 6:08pm

 

4.  STEP Foundation update- Bill Luzader: the $20,000 grant from the Sheehan Family Foundation does not HAVE to be spent by Jan 1, 2006 – delayed to Jan 1, 2007 because the site for the observatory at Plymouth South Middle School may be affected by the decision to build a new school in the area between PSMS and Plymouth South High School. So the location of the observatory has to be changed.

 

 

New Business

 

1.      Next Month’s Meeting Feb. 1, 2006 Presentation by Bruce Garhard about the Sun and Solar viewing 7:30 pm at the Council on Aging

 

2. Board Meeting Saturday Jan, 28th at 3:30pm at Council on Aging

 

3. Rolf Egon shared news about observing and presentation evenings:

a. Sunday Feb 5 at 7 PM Quincy Park Department and Rain date Tue Feb 7 at 7 PM

b. Adult same location Feb 6 (rain date Feb 8) at 7 pm

 

4. Bill Luzader shared:

a. Monthly meeting of Skyscrapers, Inc. (http://www.theskyscrapers.org/ ) in North Scituate, RI, at the Community Center, on Friday Jan 6 at 7 pm.

b. January Blake Planetarium show, Thursdays at 7 pm – “Saturn rings clouds and moons” 3. 3. c. William Walton, a retired astronomer and astronomy educator, who lives in Plymouth is donating many astronomy things to the Blake Planetarium including an old homemade telescope (3 inch Newtonian?) – will share

d. Stardust capsule returns to Earth from encounter with comet Jan 15 and the New Horizons satellite is to be launched to Pluto on Jan 17

 

5. Mal McDonald shared a problem he has had with “theSky” version 6 dealing with updating existing and newly discovered asteroid data

 

6. George Alexander shared information about someone wanting to build an observatory on the Blue Hills

 

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Luzader

Secretary

South Shore Astronomical Society

http://ssasros.org