Greetings NHAC members!

 

Juan Carlos Reina, NHAC President, is in Honduras with his wife Geraldina. JC and Geraldina are from Honduras and every summer they make a pilgrimage back to their original homeland. He has asked my to write the president’s letter for June 2005. Much has happed with the club and there are a lot of future plans.

 

The most exciting event was the June 4, 2005 “Southern Cross” BBQ/Star Party at the Neal Site. The observing field was lined with 3 dozen + telescopes. John Lane supervised an extremely bright iridium flare early in the evening. Unusual for a June evening, it was quite cool and the dew stayed away allowing for about 3 hours of great observing. The clouds cleared, we had our star party, then the clouds came back, allowing for an active evening of observing. In my neck of the observing field, views of Omega Centauri were the most popular and in the college’s 20-inch Dob you could focus from the front to the rear of the cluster taking a 3D trip through its center. The food was great as usual. Dan Gava coordinates these BBQs, so the next time you see him, he deserves to be hassled. Dan and Kathy Gava organize all the food and they even brought some delicious deviled eggs. The mystery fudge even showed up again. It’s delicious. Henry Norton is another member that puts an enormous effort into prepping for the BBQ, and all the other club activities now that I think of it. Henry and his team get everything out of the NGC 1 container and set up the serving area. Next Henry preps the area with the weed eater and makes sure that the restroom facilities are in order. He then cooks all the burgers and helps put everything up. After that he led one of the novice sessions and then finally had some time to sit back and do some observing. I always enjoy hassling Henry. Jeff Winship also helped out will the early evening programs. If you are a novice member of NHAC and you want to learn to get out under the stars and observe some great sights, then our four annual BBQs are the best way to learn from the experts. We had a 2-hour novice session just after sunset. Equipment is provided. Just come and have a great meal and meet some fellow observers then begin your journey into astronomy.

 

The featured program at the May meeting was different from most of our programs. Author John Strand, formerly employed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, spoke to the club about some of the strange experiences that he had while working on Voyager, Viking, and Apollo…. Many members had copies of his latest book personally autographed. It was like a journey into some of the excitement of the earlier years of NASA’s space exploration programs. Thanks John for an excellent program. Henry Norton led the pre-meeting novice program on the Astronomical League’s observing clubs at the May meeting. It has taken me four years to finish up the Messier certification, I still have 6 more objects to observe, but they are too close to the Sun right now. I’ll probably finish it up this fall. The one main thing that I have learned from observing the list’s 110 objects is an appreciation and knowledge of the variety of structures of these objects. It also greatly adds to my repertoire of objects that I can use to show others at star parties. At the June 24 meeting Henry will again orchestrate the Novice program on the club’s telescope learner program. I led the advanced pre-meeting program in May on image processing for beginners. There was an unusually large turnout for both pre-meeting sessions indicating that club members are finding these sessions useful.

 

The featured program for the June 24 NHAC meeting at the college will be a special celebration of the centennial of the publication of Albert Einstein and his science. In 1905 Einstein, at the age of 26, published five papers that changed the world of science forever. We will have an audio/visual program complete with video clips and short presentations by several NHAC members covering Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity. The teaching theater will be adorned with six different posters of Albert Einstein. At the end of the meeting these posters will be given away as door prizes. The pre-meeting advanced program will be “Introductory Image Processing – Part II by Bill Leach. The novice program will be on the loaner telescope program, the use of telescopes and the Neal Site.

 

On Saturday, September 10, 2005 the club will sponsor an event open to the public that is oriented to bring astronomy to the communities on the north side of Houston. Pre-sunset activities will include information and demonstration booths. Ay sunset an Orion telescope will be raffled off to some lucky attendee. You can purchase tickets on the club’s website at www.astronomyclub.org for $2 each or three for $5. Proceeds from the raffle, refreshments and t-shirts will go to support a scholarship for a student majoring in astronomy at Kingwood College and also to support the club’s speaker’s program. Please plan to attend and bring a bunch of friends. The lights will be turned off in part of the parking lot for an after sunset “star party”. We would like to see several hundred persons attend.

 

On Saturday, October 22, 2005 the five astronomy clubs will celebrate Astronomy Day 2005 at the George Observatory. This annual event has attracted over 3000 attendees in the past. Such an event requires over 100 volunteers. Volunteers can bring a telescope for the observing deck, set-up a demonstration or answer questions at the NHAC table or you could just attend the event with your friends and family. Food is provided for club volunteers. On Friday, October 21, 2005 at 7 PM is the 5^th Annual Houston/Beaumont Regional Astronomy Meeting. This year the meeting will be held at Houston Community College. This is a great way to meet the other clubs and the program is designed to be a kind of pep rally for Astronomy Day. Put these dates on your calendar and come join the fun.

 

 

Bill Leach

North Houston Astronomy Club

Vice President