We agreed at the general meeting on Friday, 12/10/04, to extend the time for nominating candidates for any of the Board positions to Sunday night. The cut-off is now 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, 12/12/04. I’ll finalize the ballot then – so be sure to get your nominations in!
For how to make your nominations, please click on the title to this article…
It’s official! Hassi Norlen has now taken over the duties of Website Editor from Russ Sipe, completing the new website management team. Hari Dudani is our Technical Webmaster, dealing with the “nuts and bolts” side of maintaining and improving the website, while Hassi will be dealing with the content aspects of the site.
Hari and Hassi – thank you both for taking on these responsibilities, and we look forward to seeing what the two of you will be doing with the site in the future!
Russ Sipe and Liam Kennedy – our deepest thanks to both of you for all you have done to make the site what it is today!
This month’s Astrophysics meeting (Friday, Nov. 19) will feature Alex Filippenko’s lecture on the expanding universe, as illuminated by recent supernovae distance studies. Professor Filippenko has been personally active in this area of very active research, so this lecture should be especially rewarding.
The meeting starts at 7:30 p.m. in the classroom behind the Centennial Heritage Museum, and we expect that it will begin with Don Lynn’s update on recent developments with the Mars landers, Cassini, etc., including explanations of the pictures he downloads and generously brings to the meetings to share with the rest of us. As usual, the meeting will include discussion of various issues raised by the lecture, current events in the research realm, and otherwise of interest to those in attendance.
For more information, please contact Chris Buchen (buchen@cox.net), the Coordinator for the Astrophysics SIG.
Everyone is welcome – we look forward to seeing you there!
Shelley Bonus has kindly provided us with an extensive list of references she has found, covering myths and stories associated with the constellations from many different cultures. If you know of any that aren’t on her current list, please email her the information – the list is a work in progress,and she’d love to hear from you. To see the full list, please click on the article title.
This is the updated agenda for the Board meeting tonight (Sunday, 11/7/04).
All members are welcome to come to the meeting, but please telephone me at 714/606-1825 in advance if you want to come, as our generous host, Lockheed Martin, needs to know who is expected.
The “How to Use Your Telescope” session of OCA’s Beginners Class has been moved from this coming Friday (11/5/04) to the January session of the Beginners Class, which will be on 1/7/05. If you have questions or are having problems with your telescope, though, we’ll be happy to talk to you about them before or after the the class session. The class this coming Friday will be “Instruments, Part 2,” which is mainly centered on telescope mounts.
For the complete revised class schedule, please click on the title, above.
San Diego IDA and OPTAS are jointly sponsoring a public forum on outside lighting/dark sky issues. That’s on 10/20/04 at 6:30 p.m. in Oceanside (click on the title for full details). If you can be there, this is a great event for anyone interested in improving our skies!
This is the proposed agenda for the meeting of the OCA Board of Trustees, which starts at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, 9/26/04 (the pre-meeting potluck starts 1/2 hour before). My apologies for not posting it earlier; I’ve been having computer problems, so anyone who needs to contact me about the meeting should do it by phone rather than email.
Barbara Toy
OCA President
Just a reminder for all my fellow procrastinators – today (8/20) is the LAST DAY to register for AstroImage 2004 at the reduced fee ($49 instead of $65 – both are a real bargain, considering the program, but why not get the better bargain?).
The easiest way to be sure you’re within the deadline is to register on line and pay through PayPal. Or, if you’re going to be at the Astrophysics meeting tonight, you can give me your form and a check for the right amount (you have the option of ordering the dinner for $20 as well as the conference video for $15) and I’ll make sure it gets to Charlie. Or – if you trust the Post Office – you can mail it to Charlie at the club’s P.O. Box (1762, Costa Mesa, CA 92628).
Barbara Toy
OCA President
and AI 2004 Volunteer Coordinator
As a preview to September’s talk at the general meeting, here’s the Sundial Resource List that Larry McDavid had too few copies of at RTMC. These’ll give you a taste of the surprising complexity of one of our earliest types of clocks. The picture is of the Turtle Bay Sundial Bridge – a very modern sundial. You can learn more about it http://www.turtlebay.org/ .