The meeting was called to order at 7:12PM. The meeting was held at Witmer 116.
We all introduced ourselves and shared the following information: Name/officer?, membership status, and something interesting about yourself.
Dean created a Yahoo group for NSAS. He created this group because some people are getting more e-mails than they want from the NSAS e-mail list. This way, the e-mail list can be used for meeting dates and reminders for upcoming events, and the discussion group can be used for other things. The address for the group is:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/northern_sky/
Milly wanted to get more people involved in the club, so he started recording things that people did during club events.He then acknowledged them by presenting the members awards for helping out or participating in the club's activities. At this meeting he handed awards out to:
Dean and Jen:for outstanding performance with the Mars viewing at the First Night telescope on December 31, 2003
Dean, Jen, Jeff, Matt, Kayla, Tim, Spike, and Mike: for helping out with the Mars Landing night of January 24, 2004
A member of the Dakota Astronomical Society named Mike Bauer, who was a regular at the Badlands Star Party and gave a "what's up in the night sky" talk, died of cancer. If it is ok with family members and the Bismarck club, Milly wants to rename the "Distinguished Astronomer Award" to the "Mike Bauer Memorial Award"
Dean says that the application for the Night Sky Network is just about ready to be sent off. It is a national coalition of astronomy clubs that are engaged in outreach events. Paul and Ray are responsible for telling JPL what we do.It was decided that our club would join this last month.
The club also joined the Astronomical League. http://www.astroleague.org/
NORTH DAKOTA STAR PARTY INFORMATION:
The "Distinguished Astronomer" award costs $25.Milly proposed that each club in the state gets to nominate people that are outstanding in the hobby of Astronomy. Then a panel of members will meet and decide who wins the award. The winning club pays for 2/3 of the plaque and NSAS will pay for the other 1/3. Milly is going to make a form for the other clubs to fill out.
WE NEED T-SHIRT DESIGNS!!! The winner of the t-shirt design contest gets one free registration for the North Dakota Star Party on the weekend of May 21, 2004. The t-shirt design should be related to ND and STAR PARTY.Any submissions should be given to a club officer by March 31. Electronic submissions can be sent via e-mail and should be tiff or gif.
There will be a star party planning meeting on Friday, March 5
MORE NEWS:
The
Girl Scouts event will be held in Odegard Hall on February 14, 2004.The club members will meet from 8:30-9:00
to set-up. Registration will be at 9:30
and the fun will begin at 10:00.The
atmospherium show will be from 10:00-10:40, and then the scouts will break up
into four groups and have 40 minute sessions in four different rooms of ~35
people each.The groups will be:Living on Mars, presented by DSS; Rockets,
NDRA; Mars Rocks, Milly; and Stars & Telescopes in the Atmospherium,
NSAS.There will be a lunch break from
12:15-12:45 and it is provided for volunteers. This event will be adjourned by 2:15 pm.
Jeff
is storing an 11' telescope dome (belongs to NSAS) that needs to be fixed up (it needs
to become "un-dented" and have a good home.
Our
star party last year made the third-biggest impact in the state for the
JAYCEES.This year the JAYCEES don't
need money for this year's project which is on Meth Awareness.Milly's idea is to have a "Solar System
Walk" along the sidewalk at JAYCEES park by the Weather Service.This walk will be scaled down to Πmile.The foundation that funds educational
JAYCEES projects is the ND foundation and the USA foundation.They can put money towards the observatory
in the park which club members can use.
Milly
then showed us software that was given to him last year from the Space
Chicks.He also showed us software
called Mars24 SunClock, which Mars software found on the Mars Rover site.Another software that he showed us was
called AnaMaker which is a 3D program where you can get raw images and make
them into 3-Dimensional images if you use 3D glasses. He also showed us the screensavers from the NASA Mars Rover
site.
Mars24 SunClock Site: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/
AnaMaker Site: http://xal3d.homestead.com/Downloads.html
NASA Screensavers: http://www1.nasa.gov/lb/multimedia/downloads/index.html
Ray also asked us to do a software presentation at the next meeting. Vishnu Reddy gave a talk on Observing from Mauna Kea. He was also presented with an award for his wonderful talk about his visit.
In
April, the meeting will be held in Leonard Hall on the 2nd
floor.Dr. Nels Forsman will be sharing
his knowledge using optical microscopy on meteorites and other rocks. We will
also be looking at cross-sections that Vishnu found recently.
For
those interested in going to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, the
deadline is February 13.It is $35 for
students and $60 for non-students. (this is registration only!!!)
Charlie
also reminded us of the upcoming occultation of an extra-solar planet in
Bemidji.The latest calculations show
it happening in Montana. This can be found in Sky & Telescope.
The
next club meeting is on March 9, 7PM at the physics building, room 116.
The
meeting was adjourned at 9:09 pm.+/-30 seconds.