The Celestial Observer

 

Newsletter of the North Shore

 Amateur Astronomy Club

 

 

January, 2005

 

 

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From the President

A vote will be taken at the January meeting on whether NSAAC should re-join ALCOR. Please read the article in this newsletter which mentions some of the issues, and plan to attend the January meeting to cast your vote. We’ll have some great entertainment after the meeting: a comparison of two vintage Questars.

 

Also up for discussion at the January meeting will be what to do with the SHARE system. The board has decided that what we DON’T want to do is to let it sit in storage and antiquate. We prefer to either sell it or donate it if we are not going to put it to use ourselves. We now have two parties who are interested in it.

 

Club elections are right around the corner. Your nomination committee (Barrie Sawyer, Chairman and Fred Sammartino, Co-Chairman) will address the membership in January asking for nominations. The slate will be announced at the February meeting and voting takes place in March. The Board of Directors consists of five officers (President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary, and Membership Director) and two Members-At-Large. If you’ve never served on the board, or if you have and would like to serve again, I encourage you to submit your name to the nomination committee. None of the positions require a lot of work; mostly you just have to show up for the meetings. The Member-At-Large positions are a great way to be introduced to the board and the business of running the club without committing a lot of time.

 

The New Year is upon us! Saturn will be in opposition this month on January 13. Comet Machholz could reach 4th magnitude right after Christmas and remain bright for a month.

Mars will attempt an encore of 2003 with its closest approach on October 30 and opposition on November 7.

 

Wishes of health, happiness, and clear skies to you and your family throughout the holiday season!

 

Kevin Ackert

President

 

 

NSAAC Welcomes Our New Members:

Kristina Sargent of Ipswich, MA

Dana Hastings of North Reading, MA

 

 

Minutes of the NSAAC Business Meeting, December 3rd, 2004

President Ackert called the December Business Meeting of the NSAAC to order at 8:06PM. President Ackert called for introduction of new guests: there were no guests.  There were 13 members in attendance plus 6 Board members.

 

Committee Reports:

 

Secretary: The minutes of the November Business Meeting as printed in the newsletter were approved.

 

Treasurer:  Treasurer indicated that there was $40 income, $7,278 in checking account, and $7.8K in the land fund.  Paid club liability insurance of $348.  Treasurer’s report was approved.

 

Membership:  The membership chairman announced three new members.  Also in attendance was honorary member Chris McCarthy.

 

Merrimack College:  The group is still looking for another volunteer.  If interested contact Fred Sammartino.  All observing nights were cancelled due to inclement weather.

 

GO-ON Committee:  Seven people attended the lunar GO-ON. Members used the Charles Wood 100 list for observing.  There will be a naked-eye GO-ON event Saturday November 11 at VMP.  Lew Gramer and Rick Margolis will be the leaders.

 

Salem State:  The Observatory was open three Mondays of the last month, but attendance has been poor..

 

Star Parties:  There will be a Cranes Beach star party February 11th 2005.

 

Site Selection Committee:  No report

 

High-Tower Rock Observatory.  No report.

 

Upcoming Events:  There will be an occultation of Jupiter by the moon on the morning of December 7th.

 

Old Business:  We received a thank you note from IRWS for our support on their annual birdseed day.

Kevin Ackert indicated that the VMP lighting would be upgraded to non-glare soon.

Dennis Gudzevich has sold all but 4 of the Tidemark calendars.

 

SHARE System --John Hobbs has been in contact with Chris Anderson, manager of the new Centennial Observatory at the College of Southern Idaho in Two Falls, Idaho.  The observatory features a 24-inch research grade telescope that they want to make handicapped accessible.  They are interested in the SHARE system and a list of the equipment of the system was sent to them to look over and determine if they were interested in the system.  The Planetarium at the University Museum is a not for profit entity and would be eligible for the system.  John will get back to them and determine their interest.  Any transfer, sale or donation of the system must have club membership approval..

 

American Astronomical League (AAL) – There are two options available for the club to consider:(1) the club rejoin for $570 which gets members the reflector magazine and the certificate programs and (2) each individual could join as member at large for $30 per member who could then participate in the certificate program.  A motion was made to determine if the club should ask the membership if they want to rejoin the AAL.  Motion passed with two negatives and one abstention.  Lew Gramer will post information about the AAL on the list server for discussion.  Information about the upcoming AAL vote at the January business meeting will be put in the December newsletter.

 

New Business:  Barrie Sawyer has volunteered to be chairman of the nominating committee.   The committee will submit its list of nominees so they are announced at the February meeting and placed in the February newsletter.

 

Andy Martin made a presentation on making observing lists.

 

Next Board meeting will Tuesday, December 14th at 8PM at VMP..

 

Meeting adjourned at 9:10 PM

 

Respectively submitted,

John Hobbs, Secretary NSAAC


ALCOR Vote In January

The membership will be asked to vote during the January business meeting on whether we should re-join the Astronomical League (ALCOR). We have not paid our club dues to ALCOR since 2002. Club membership in ALCOR costs $5.00 per member. With our current membership at 112, the club membership fee would be $560.00.  Individuals can join ALCOR as Members At Large for $30.00 per year.

 

ALCOR is a federation of amateur astronomers with its strongest base in the Midwest. Membership entitles you to receive the ALCOR magazine which is published quarterly. The magazine mostly bears news of ALCOR and has little on astronomy itself. The most attractive aspect of membership to ALCOR is the achievement programs. Certificates for observing all the Messier objects is one award, amongst several others.

 

We have been discussing this issue for several months at both the board and business meetings. A vote was taken at the December meeting on whether we should have the membership decide the issue at the January meeting and the majority voted yes. Lew Gramer (our current ALCOR representative) has pointed out some items to consider.

 

 

I encourage members to open a discussion of this issue on the list server. We will of course have a discussion prior to the vote in January. For more information on ALCOR visit http://www.astroleague.org. Please bear in mind that a vote to re-join ALCOR will be negated by a failure to find a member willing to be the representative.

 

 

A Birdseed Day Thank-You Note

Dear Kevin,

I just wanted to say thank you to you and the other members of NSAAC who came up to the Sanctuary on November 6 to help with Birdseed Pickup Day. It's an annual tradition of the astronomy club giving a helping hand to the sanctuary on this day, unloading the seed truck and loading orders into cars all day! We are most grateful to the following people for coming out to help:

 

Ron Sampson

Dennis, Debbie, and Brian Gudzevich

Paul Agersea

Kevin Ackert

Dave Leclerc

John Hobbs

 

(this is from the sign-in sheet, so if I've left anyone out, my apologies, and thank you to all!) It was a great day.

 

Sincerely,

Susan Baeslack

Education Coordinator/Volunteer Coordinator

Mass Audubon/Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary

 

 


Talk for January

$4000.00 for a telescope that's smaller than some of my eyepieces??  That's approximately what Questar Corp. charges for its 3.5 inch Maksutov telescope.  Maybe Al Nagler can justify that kind money for refractor with exotic glass and up to eight surfaces to figure, but four grand for a small Mak?  If you want to find out about this legendary instrument, come to the January business meeting.  Barrie Sawyer will demo the Questar in his possession.  No, he didn't buy it, steal it, or trade his soul for it (it's on loan from a friend). 

 

 

Access the E-Mail Listserve Archives!

NSAAC members may now access the on-line archives of all list server messages since April ’04  via this URL:

   http://lists.nsaac.org/mailman/private/nsaac/

The system requires that you are already subscribed
(with or without Mail Delivery turned on) to the 'nsaac'
list, and that you know your password.

 

To get your password emailed to you, just in case you haven’t got it memorized (yeah, right), go to:


   http://lists.nsaac.org/mailman/listinfo/nsaac

 

On that page, enter your email address (the one you’re getting your NSAAC messages on) in the last field at the bottom of the page, and then press the “Unsubscribe or edit options” button (don’t worry, it won’t unsubscribe you…yet). On the page that comes up next, look for the text “Forgotten your password?” and press the “Email My Password To Me” button that appears immediately below it.

 

Getting to Veasey Memorial Park

From Interstate 95 north, take the Route 133 west (54B) exit, and follow it into Georgetown Center.  Go straight through the light, now on Route 97N.  Go about 1.5 miles and take a left onto Salem Street (Tea Garden Restaurant at this intersection).  Stay on Salem Street and turn left onto Washington Street. VMP is down a bit on the right.

 

Directions to all of the NSAAC observing sites are available on our web site's “About” page at:

        http://www.nsaac.org/about.htm

 

Contact Information

For more information about the club and its activities, contact Barrie Sawyer,  Membership Director, email: membership@nsaac.org or contact Kevin Ackert, President, e-mail at president@nsaac.org.  If you have no email access, you may phone Fred Sammartino, Vice President at (978) 989-9977.

 

Our club web site is: http://www.nsaac.org.

 

The Celestial Observer is edited by Leor Zolman. Feedback, and member contributions are welcome. Contact: newsletter@nsaac.org.

 

Suggestions regarding the content of the NSAAC web site are also welcome, as I (Leor) am also acting as de-facto webmaster for the site. Do you have a web site you’d like to see listed on the members’ web site page? Suggestions for the Resources (or any other) page? Just email webmaster@nsaac.org with your ideas.

 

E-Mail Listserve

If you have email access and are an NSAAC member in good standing, you may want to subscribe to the email notification system that Lew Gramer established for the Club in 1996. This is a "members only" system that places you in contact with other members for late breaking news concerning spontaneous observing activities, outings, tech talk, etc. You can subscribe by emailing your request to the address below.  Your message should look like this:

 

To: majordomo@nsaac.org

Subject: Email list (you can put anything here)

Body: subscribe NSAAC Full-Name <email-address>

 

To remove yourself from the email list, or to temporarily suspend delivery from the list or access your other options, please use our “Subscriber Settings” Web page:


  http://lists.nsaac.org/mailman/listinfo/nsaac#subscribers