December 21, 2022
Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford
Online Business Meeting Minutes
Date:
December 21, 2022
This meeting was recorded with the permission of the speaker. It is available now on Vimeo here: https://vimeo.com/783667160
The December ASGH Business meeting was brought to order at 7:32 PM EST by President Markiewicz. Happy Winter Solstice! There were 14 attendees present online over Zoom & 1 new member present, B. Felt of Middletown.
ASGH Member and NASA Solar System Ambassador, Greg Shanos, PharmD, treated us to a 1 hour 30 minute talk with part 2 of his program on Mars, Planetary Imaging. The presentation was well received with many members acknowledging with envy his advantage in planetary imaging with his lower Florida latitude. We have been fortunate that the planets were higher in the sky albeit with much lower temperatures outside.
Secretary’s Report:
The Secretary’s report of the November 2022 meeting minutes was approved as posted by the membership in attendance.
Public Observing at the Van Vleck Observatory, Wesleyan University:
Our December public date had been plagued with a day of rain and clouds. Weather reports continued to state the rain would stop and the sky would clear after 8 PM and remain clear over night. So, we remained optimistic and opened the observatory, waiting until the last possible vestige of misting and clouds disappeared before opening the some slit and removing the cover off the scope. Only a dozen or so people came out but they were treated to several views of the planets all night.
We will not hold a January session while, the committee lead, recovers from surgery. The Observatory was okay with this request and looked forward to our 2023 return.
Treasurer’s Report:
Treasurer’s report provided by Treasurer, Cyndi Barron via J. Sillasen as she was unable to get away from work in time for the meeting. She reports there was $1,251.52 in the checking account and $24,027.30 in the savings account. The membership approved the report as given.
Webmasters Report:
Webmaster, John Allen, reported to Sec’y, J. Sillasen via chat that there were no problems to report with the website. He was having difficulty talking due to illness but was in attendance.
Old Business:
None
New Business:
Outreach Coordinator, Chris Markiewicz, proposed that $2200 be funded for 4 (four) library loaner telescopes as designated and outlined in the Astronomical League’s library loaner program. The telescope not previously available is available again, the Orion 130 mm Star Blast Table Top Dobsonian reflector. After much discussion including a request to find out how much use previous library donation telescopes are actually being used for programming and loans, the Motion was Tabled.
President, Chris Markiewicz has been paying for an annual Vimeo subscription to host our meeting recordings online. After much discussion, whether the club should pay and the President should not have been paying for this at all, Bill DiNeo volunteered to investigate using YouTube to host our meeting programs.
Sec’y, J. Sillasen made a motion that only the Speakers program be recorded and posted and not the meeting content – with the permission of the speaker to record their program of course being granted verbally. Bill DiNeo made a supporting statement noting that the meeting minutes are posted online for all dues paying members to see and therefore there was no need to post the recording of the business meetings.
The motion passed. The video link above now only provides the guest speaker program and not the business meeting.
Outreach:
There were only 3 outreach events since the last meeting – two at Talcott Mountain and one at the Children’s Hospital. The latter was done indoors with a Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount pointed at the Moon through a window to the delight of the patients, nurses and staff available to support the event.
Member Observing Reports:
R.Zywno reported that Comet C/2022 E3 [ZTF – ed. J. Sillasen],will be at maximum visiblility on February 7th where it will be 81-85 degrees in Altitude and at an Azimuth of 118 degrees in the East in the constellation Auriga, possibly reaching magnitude +5.9. It could be visible before that from while low in the morning sky January 26 0 February 6th but it will be competing with a full Moon.
Check out https://in-the-sky.org/ for a list of observable objects/events in the area
For the Good of the Organization:
Dave Allen has offered to do a new and improved dew heater build class over Zoom on January 28th from 2-5 PM. The cost of materials is about $100. The participants need to a minimum amount of soldering and drilling to complete their own dew heater controller during the alloted class time. Class is free and will be held over Zoom.
Interested parties should reach out to Dave Allen at membership@asgh.org.
Meeting Adjourned at 10:17 PM EST