December 15, 2021
Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford
Online Business Meeting
Date:
December 15, 2021
This meeting was recorded. It is available now on Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/657911591
The December ASGH Business meeting was brought to order promptly at 7:30 PM by President Chris Markiewicz. There were initially 12 attendees present but that swelled to 25 before settling to 24 for the majority of the online Zoom meeting. There continues to be no change in our physical meeting and public observing status. There was one new member present: Laura Santirocco of W. Hartford. As one of 3 sisters from a family where AstroPhysics was part and parcel with breakfast, lunch & supper, the 3 kept close but had diverse career paths but managed to maintain a sustained love for astronomy.
Presentations:
Dave Allen, Membership Committee Chair, gave tonight’s presentation. It was on “The mechanics of setting up a small ZWO ASI224mc one shot color camera (OSC) to a Nexstar 6se SCT.” He received several well deserved compliments and thanks for his talk. While the measurement techniques he used were unique to his setup of using the 1.25″ star diagonal within the imaging train, he carefully noted this and suggested users contact the manufacturer of whatever camera they were using or their dealer and newsgroups for the exact spacing requirements for their own telescope/camera setup.
Secretary’s Report:
The Secretary’s report for November was approved as posted. Sillasen noted that the proprietary method of posting minutes to the software ASGH is using for the website, Word Press, required a great deal of work for the Webmaster to reformat the simple PDF format of the minutes he was providing. After some trial and tests of a variety of many different formats available for export from the Secretary’s use of Open Office 4, Microsoft Word 365 and finally WordPerfect Office Professional 2021, Webmaster John Allen, found that the format of Unformatted ANSI GenericWord Processor was the easiest on him of all 9 formats tested to post the document online. (Who knew, right? I thought the simplest format as an Adobe PDF was the most generic possible. Not so. The testing was well worth the effort to make the job easiest to manage – Sec’y).
Treasurer’s Report:
Treasurer, Cyndi Barron, reported the balance in the checking account is $1,332.53 and the Savings account balance is $25,024.25 which includes the payment from Cosmic Cultures II of $4,993. Sec’y Sillasen inquired if she felt that the new use of PayPal for members to pay dues and subscriptions was valuable to her and if it saved her effort? She reported it was very helpful and did save her valuable time in getting members payments into the account. At which point, member, Dave Rose asked if we would ever get to use PayPal to pay dues? His question was responded to with ruckus chuckles, after learning we just finished talking about it again…. The treasurer’s report was approved by the membership as submitted.
Webmaster Report:
No changes to report this month and no outages were reported.
Outreach:
As reported last month, C. Markiewicz, President and Outreach Coordinator was contacted by the Hale-Homestead organization based out of Coventry Connecticut to have a conversation with us to determine if we would be a good fit for providing ongoing outreach programs at their location. This would include potentially talks, star tours and star gazing. Markiewicz and J. Sillasen, met with their Executive Director, Aaron Marcavitch and Site Manager, Hannah Einsiedel on December 7th over Zoom. After listening to how our program works, their onsite resources and seeing maps, a site visit is definitely in order. Dave Opalenik noted he frequents this location as they host a Farmer’s Market he enjoys. He agrees there is a lot of available space to do an open area star party. There is little around in terms of houses or businesses. Sky glow from UCONN is visible in one direction only. The Milky Way being a frequent sight. To say we are excited would downplay our zeal. The concern of course is the distance from members. While we are the appropriate local astronomy resource to them, would members make the trek to their site to share their views and telescopes. We will discuss more when Spring approaches and access to the site is once more available.
Old Business:
None
New Business:
Cosmic Cultures II program manager have been in contact with President C. Markiewicz, stating a request for funding with the state has been submitted. Documentation will be forthcoming and a membership vote will need to be taken in early 2022.
Observing Reports:
C. Markiewicz reports his reports on objects to observe come from https://in-the-sky.org and encouraged members to try it. Of note this month:
Comet Leonard, C/2021 A1 – low in the Southern sky but observable at dusk.
Sillasen notes that Bob Horton of Brown University says to look for Venus at just a 1% phase on January 3, 2022, although low on the horizon in the SW, try observing before Sunset just be careful to keep the scope away from the Sun!! At the same time, try seeing Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter with Venus the lowest on the horizon. A planetary dance to setting! (Sec’y Sillasen).
Mercury will be at Perihelion on January 15, 2022
Member, Greg Shanos, a NASA Solar System Ambassador had reported having excellent results with the recent Geminid Meteor Shower. Sillasen asked if he would share his reporting methods. He did and members were surprised to see how an old school reporting method of paper and pencil for a meteor recording system was so effective. Shanos shared his reports that he submitted to ALPO – Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers and the IMO – International Meteor Organization. Both reports were accepted by the organizations. He noted it was 71 Degrees F and 96% humidity at his Florida observing location.
For the Good of the Organization:
Please consider volunteering to do a meeting presentation, Contact any officer with your ideas.
NSN Presentations for club use: http://bit.ly/nsnpresentations
Premade PowerPoint presentations for cloudy nights and other club events.
Handouts
http://bit.ly/nsnhandouts
Handy handouts you can print and give out to visitors, including moon maps, meteor shower observing tips, and star party treasure hunts.
Keep an eye on your ASGH Groups.io emails for up to the minute webinars and presentations including live star parties!
Meeting adjourned at 9:27 PM EDT