Astronomy Cafe – Nov 28, 2022

Posted by as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of the meeting

  • Astronomy Day – Jeff Pivnick
    • Giveaways needed – contact Jeff
      • Old Observers’ Handbook
      • Past issues of magazines like Skynews
      • Astronomy books no longer needed
  • Victoria Centre AGM 2023 – Randy Enkin
    • Decouple the social event and the business meeting
  • How do members use the Observers Handbook? – Randy Enkin
    • Read articles, but don’t use as a guide book
    • Definitions are useful
    • Source of authoritative information about astronomy
    • Lists of eclipses, celestial objects
    • Sky phenomena
    • Tides
    • Professional astronomers use it as reference
    • Chris Purse and James Edgar have given tours of the Observers Handbook. James’ 6 presentations are available on RASC National’s Youtube.
  • 2023 RASC Observers calendars – should arrive within a week for those who ordered – Lauri Roche
  • SIGs – David Lee
    • Members have shown interest in the new Citizen Science SIG – announcement pending
    • Electronically-Assisted Astronomy SIG this Thursday
    • Beginners SIG next week
  • Astronomy Cafe venue – Randy Enkin
    • Custodians want to clean our meeting room and leave by 9:00PM
    • Proposing to start Astro Cafe at 7:00PM
    • Possibly give up on in-person Astro Cafe?
    • What about monthly meetings at UVic resuming? Parking is now $4 for the evening, and no word from UVic about restarting room rentals.
  • Artemis Mission – Chris Gainor
    • Photo of Artemis’ Orion, the Moon, Earth – Flickr
    • Dec 1 – next burn
    • James Webb mission blogs
    • L2 outside the Moon gives Orion a low-energy position – Distant Retrograde Orbit
    • Mass concentrations on the Moon affect the orbit of the rockets
    • Nov 23 – Orion lost contact with Earth for 47 minutes – unexplained, to be investigated
    • Discussion about launching processes
  • Using Stellarium – Dennis F
    • Impressed with the tutorials produced by National
  • NRC Open House for RASC members?
    • Would be great to have a tour of the new optical building
    • Lauri to coordinate when the road reopens
  • FDAO Star Parties – Lauri Roche
    • Dec 26 – online only for last Saturday’s Star Party
      • Presentation: CASTOR new space telescope (ultraviolet, wide-field) – Dr. Tyrone Woods, project lead
      • Would make a good presentation for RASC Victoria members
    • Dec 17 – virtual Star Party celebrating the solstice – Nathan is the speaker
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