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Club Officers:

President:
    Doug Summers

Vice President:
    Craig Nance

Secretary:
    Bernt Grundseth (acting)

Treasurer:
    

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March 2008 Club Meeting Report



Agenda:

Welcome/Introductions Doug Summers 5 Minutes
The Sky this Month Doug Summers 15 Minutes
Waikoloa Elementary Telescope Rickey Ormiston 15 Minutes
Social Break All 10 Minutes
Featured Talk: "Cosmology for WHAC'os" Dr. Greg Wirth
Keck Observatory
40 Minutes
Club Business
Doug Summers 10 Minutes
Finish by 9:00pm


The WHAC Meeting was held on March 11 in the Hualalai conference room at the W.M. Keck Observatory Headquarters in Waimea.
Doug Summers facilitated the club meeting and welcomed all members, this time we had an attendance of 38 members including a few attending for the first time.

The Sky this Month
As usual Doug used the Where the Stars Are program to scan for the various interesting objects in the sky. Starting in the West we can see the Big Andromeda galaxy and the Pleiades also known as the seven sisters. In the South we have Carina. In this section of the sky we can see with the naked eye lots of open clusters. Orion is nice and high in the sky crossing the meridian and is on its way down. In the North the Little Dipper, with Polaris, M81, M82 and M51 start coming back, rising high in the sky. In the East we can see Leo the Lion rising and Virgo with the Virgo Galaxy core. In the Morning at 4:00 am, in the West, Saturn will be coming down the Ecliptic. And in the East all the summer constellations. Scorpius is well up, Sagittarius just rising, the summer triangle, Altair, Vega and Deneb. Jupiter is up in the morning and close to the horizon along with Neptune, Mercury and Venus. A good number of planets in the morning sky.
South in the morning we can find 3 interesting objects in this section of the sky.

  • the first is the Carina nebula
  • Centaurus A, also known as NGC 5128, is a lenticular galaxy about 14 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus - one of the most unique galaxies to look at, very different from most galaxies
  • the third one, you can see with your naked eye is the globular cluster Omega Centauri

    Waikoloa Elementary Telescope Status
    Members of the club have been helping Rickey Ormiston, fourth grade teacher at the Waikoloa Elementary School, to evaluate the dome and the telescope that has been sitting on the grounds of the school since 1995. He presented several pictures of the dome structure and the telescope showing in great detail the current status. Restoring both structures to a working condition will require a lot of help, finding the proper technical documentation and fixing the mechanical and electrical components. It seems that all the pieces are there, one item missing is a CCD camera.
    The goal is to eventually offer an Astronomy class and control the telescope remotely. Cliff volunteered to donate his 14 inch telescope.

    The subject of the featured talk this night was changed from the previously scheduled in the agenda to cosmology "The Big Bang for Whacos" given by Dr Greg Wirth Resident Astronomer at Keck. Remember:
      Cosmology is not cosmetology. Cosmology is the study of the makeup of the universe. Cosmetology is the study of the universe of makeup.
    Dr. Wirth gave a broad and extensive talk about the changes in the understanding of the age of the universe and how our concepts have changed in the last 100 years. Only one galaxy was known to exist at the beginning of the last century, that was our galaxy the Milky Way. It was thought to be a few thousand light years across and the age about 25 million years. That was the extent of the observable universe. Today we know that the universe is considerable larger and the estimation of the age is around 13.5 billion years. All of this knowledge is due to the extraordinary advance in the understanding of the evolution of the universe and the theories behind the Big Bang, that postulate that the universe had a beginning. He then reviewed the contributions of the most prominent scientists of the 20th century.


    Club Business

  • Cliff pointed out that this month is the Messier marathon month and the next new moon happens to be on a weekend at the beginning of April. It will be a good opportunity to have the spring star party. He is inclined to have the star party at the VIS.
  • The majority of the members present would like to have it at the Club Dark Site. The decision will be taken later after polling the members for their preference via email. Craig Nance suggested we have a pre-observing cookout to continue with the social aspects of these events.

  • Doug reported on the deal to have a presentation of the 3d astronomical data set movie at the 'Imiloa Astronomy Center, that was discussed in our previous meeting.


  • Next month we will meet at CFHT, on Tuesday April 8, 2008 at 7pm. The featured talk will be about the International Year of Astronomy and the role of amateur astronomers around the world. The full meeting agenda is on the WHAC web site. The traditional pre-meeting dinner is at 6pm at the Parker Ranch Food Court.






    Previous meeting minutes / club news

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    July 2007 WHT article
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    1992 Mauna Kea Astronomical Society Newsletter



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