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The WHAC Meeting was held on February 12, 2008 in the conference room at the Canada France Hawaii Observatory Headquarters in Waimea.

Craig Nance welcomed all members and non members attending the meeting. This time we had attendance of about 30 people.

The Sky this Month. Andrew described some of the most interesting objects in the sky during this month using the program Where the Stars Are. During this time of the year Orion is the dominant object in the evening sky. Next he described the planets. Right now we have Saturn still high in the Leo region, Jupiter and Venus in the morning sky. Mars, still in the evening sky and getting a bit smaller than it was a few months ago, is only about 10 arcseconds in size now. Mercury is hidden in the sun glow, as well as Uranus and Neptune. The only other interesting event on the 20th of this month is a total lunar eclipse, but it will not be visible from Hawaii except for the last stage. The object of the month is the Seagull nebula, IC2177. This object is really accessible to telescope of all sizes, is a wonderful object that can be seen also with binoculars, is a huge diffused nebula spread around 7 degrees north-east of Sirius, this region is laced with open clusters.

Club Business

• Doug has been working with the director of the Keck Observatory to find a sponsor representative, since Laura Kinoshita is no longer with Keck. Our new representative from Keck is Jim Lyke. Also, several Support Astronomers will be available to work with us.
  Doug also has been working to find new sponsors. Gary Fujihara is willing to support us and find some speakers for future meetings, probably twice a year.
• Next Doug would like to have feedback about the direction of the club for the future. What are the expectations and interests of the members of the club? What we are doing right? What we are doing wrong? and asked the members to think about and give us some thoughts to help to define a good program for the present year. He also plans to have a club business meeting with the sponsors and the leadership and get their perspectives, what is working for them and what our direction should be.
• Cliff would like to suggest that the spring star party be at the dark side at the power station on MaunaKea and if we can do it in a window where a Messier marathon can be done.
• Craig explained what a Messier Marathon is for the members that are not familiar with this event. Several of the members manifested that they don't understand some of the astronomical terminology or concepts used during the presentations. Examples are: what is seeing? what do arcseconds mean? a description of astronomical coordinates, etc.
• Other members suggested that the Club have some action with the local schools.
• Pierre reminded us that next year is the International year for Astronomy, celebrating 400 years of the invention of the telescope. In April the meeting speaker is going to talk about the importance of amateur astronomers during these activities.
• Last month Doug attended the Imiloa Astronomical center in Hilo's new 3D presentation of the Universe. He asked the director of the Imiloa center to make a presentation for the members of the club. Most of the members were very interested in participating in this event.
• Last note - we have $936 in our budget. We don't collect dues, we just have CFHT calendar sales and donations from Institute for Astronomy.

The featured talk was "WHAC's Largest Portable Telescope!" by Cliff Livermore
Cliff described his telescope in detail. This is a large dobsonian telescope. The primary mirror is 24 inches and is equipped with optical encoders and tracking electronics. He did the assembly in a really short time and then explained how the alignment is done. The big advantage of this telescope is its portability. It can be assembled and transported to a car or truck in less than 15 minutes.

The next WHAC meeting is Tuesday March 11, 2008 in the Keck Hualalai conference room in Waimea at 7pm. The full meeting agenda is on the WHAC web site. The traditional pre-meeting dinner is at 6pm at the Parker Ranch Food Court.