BASINGSTOKE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Minutes of meeting held on 24th March at Cliddesden Primary School Apologies Apologies from Julie and Richard Chignell, Nick Hudson and Helen Mountstephens. The meeting opened at 7.25pm with a welcome to members and new faces. Those new to the meetings were asked to indicate where they heard about the Society, and to enter this information into the Attendance Book. Newcomers were then shown the fire exits in case of emergency. The Chairman, John Stapleton said he had been reminded that it was a year ago that the first unofficial meeting of the Society was held to see if an astronomical society within the area would be viable. Matters Arising The chairman informed members that copies of the Minutes for last month were available on the table. Messier Marathon An attempt was made on March 12th to spot all 110 objects on the Messier list. The outcome of this first attempt at a Messier Marathon was a respectable 90 objects found. A small group of participants performed a ‘post mortem’ on the event and noted what they thought we should do/not do when making further attempts. A copy of this report is available for perusal, and should anyone wish to add anything, please inform the Secretary. Election of new committee Member As mentioned last month, due to an increase in membership we can now elect another member to the Committee. Part of the duties of this new member will be organise and report the ‘Sky Watch’ section of the meeting each month. Programme for year 2005 – 2006 We now need to start planning the programme for next year. It was decided at a Committee meeting that the format for meetings would change and that we would now alternate formal Speakers with Club nights that would, when conditions be favourable, used for observing. Should we not be able to get out due to adverse weather conditions, then we would fill the evening with short 10 – 15 minutes talks on some aspect of astronomy from members, jargon buster sessions and question and answer sessions. Any member willing to do one of these short talks should enter their name and subject on to the list on the table. So far the programme for the coming year stands thus- 22nd September Neil Bone, who is Contributing Consultant to Astronomy Now magazine and the British Astronomy Association’s Meteor Section Director will give a talk on meteors. 27th October Club Night 24th November Scott Wilcox will give advice on ‘How to build your own Observatory’ December (date not decided) Party Night 26th January 2006 Club Night 23rd February Gordon McKay will give a talk on his ‘Experiences with photography’ 23rd March Club Night 27th April 28th May Chairman’s Address 22nd June Annual General Meeting 29th July (Saturday) Annual BBQ 12th August Perseid Watch Astronaut to visit Basingstoke The Society has obtained tickets for an admission by ticket only book signing/ talk by American Astronaut David Scott, on his new book ‘Two Sides Of The Moon’. This event will take place In Ottaker’s bookshop in Festival Place at 7pm (in the Children’s department of the store) on Thursday 7th April. If anyone has not got a ticket and would like to go, Andria has a few spares Dave served as command module pilot for Apollo 9 with Jim McDivitt and Rusty Schweckart; and was spacecraft commander on Apollo 15, with Al Worden and Jim Irwin, logging more than 66 hours on the surface of the Moon. Congratulations Congratulations to John Murphy on the publication of his photograph of the Orion Nebula in the April edition of Astronomy Now. The Chairman introduced John who gave us a fascinating talk on the Orion Nebula. Basingstokeas.org.uk In future details of observation sessions between meetings will be posted on the messages section, and hopefully this will encourage more members to attend. Anyone who does not have a Yahoo identity (to get access to this page) should contact Dave Shave-Wall, who has volunteered to set up Yahoo accounts for members to forward e-mails to user’s preferred e-mail address. Contact him at dave_shavewall@uk.ibm.com The Treasurer, Malcolm Trussler, requested that he be allowed to put some points. Extra sessions Malcolm urged members to write up observation sessions they have done on the messages page of the Society web page. He was hopeful that there would be some extra observation sessions coming up soon. Event of interest On 8th April, Newbury A S Dr Ian Steele will be lecturing on the Liverpool Robotic Telescope. If anyone would like a lift or instructions how to get to the meeting, contact Malcolm on Malcolm.trussler@talk21.com Events with Pupils The Chairman said there would be a late night astronomy session for the older children at the school in North Waltham; similar to the one we did for the Cliddesden pupils. If anyone wishes to attend with their telescope, please contact him on 01420 568 130. This event will be held on 13th April weather permitting, or 20th if not. Russell Palmer had done some work with the year 5/6 pupils a Cliddesden and they had launched 3 rockets in the playing field. Synopsis It has been suggested as we have so many new faces, that each Committee Member gives a short rundown on their interests, so that new members can be directed to the Committee member with interests similar to their own. After a brief observation period the cloud appeared and drove us inside. Sky Watch Andria Harbinson, the Secretary gave a short Sky Watch for April. Resume The Chairman read Brendan Shaw’s amusing resume of the Messier Marathon. Next Meeting The next meeting will be held on 28th April when Steve Harris from Newbury AS will give a talk entitled ‘Light, our only contact with the stars’. Close -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.8.5 - Release Date: 29/03/2005