The meeting was called to order at 7:00PM. The meeting was held at Witmer 114.

Dr. Young started the meeting with a welcome and the passing around the sign up sheet. After that, Milly welcomed everyone to the club and had introductions.

The badlands star party that was held on the weekend of August 13-15th was a success and was lots of fun. The star party at Jaycees Park on August 27th was also a success.

The Lunar Eclipse will happen during the evening of October 27th. As a club, we decided to have a public Lunar Eclipse party at Ulland Park starting at 7:00 PM (This will probably start earlier). The eclipse information is below:

                                              Azimuth   Altitude
                                     h  m            o        o
Moonrise               2004 Oct 27   5:07 pm       71.8     ----
Moon enters penumbra   2004 Oct 27   6:05          81.8      9.0
Moon enters umbra      2004 Oct 27   7:14          93.5     20.7
Moon enters totality   2004 Oct 27   8:23         106.4     32.4
Middle of eclipse      2004 Oct 27   9:04         115.2     38.9
Moon leaves totality   2004 Oct 27   9:44         125.4     45.0
Moon leaves umbra      2004 Oct 27  10:53         147.2     53.4
Moon leaves penumbra   2004 Oct 28  12:02 am      175.6     57.4
Moonset                2004 Oct 28   7:34         292.9     ----

Milly also shared that Allan Treiman is working with a high-school intern on a project that is to measure how far it is to astronomical objects. This project would be to get simultaneous images/video of the lunar eclipse on October 27th from Texas and various places around North Dakota to try to measure a parallax. Information can be found from a similar project: www.pbl33.co.uk As a club, we decided we would help out with this project. The other people observing this event in North Dakota for this project would be: Mike Gerszewski from Williston, Brian Kerns from central ND, and the Fargo club.

Milly suggested that we should have star parties in different parks around town. This can be publicized in the newspaper and Dr. Young said we could get advertised in the Grand Forks Parks Bulletin if we send them a list of dates of such events. All we have to do as a club is choose which dates look good to observe (such as crescent or first quarter moon). October 22-23 weekend would be a little past first quarter phase, November 5-6 would be first quarter. Please stay informed for further details.

Milly also discussed the need for forming the third annual North Dakota Star Party (NDSP) planning committee. Jennifer will be the committee chairperson and the first meeting will be held on Friday, October 1st at 7 PM in the Witmer Coffee and Donuts room. People interested in being part of this committee can contact Jen. There was also discussion of inviting the Fargo/Moorhead Astronomy club for the planning of the NDSP through teleconferencing.

Milly talked about forming a committee for the in-town observatory project. This project involves designing and constructing an observatory on parkland somewhere in Grand Forks for public outreach. Ray mentioned having UND students to help draw up sample plans for such a site, and having them printed so they can be presented at a city council or a city parks meeting. This committee will probably meet right before the next monthly meeting at 6:30 pm October 12th in Witmer 114.

Ray shared the information and goodies that he received from the Night Sky Network. To remain a member in good standing of the Night Sky Network, we need to have at least five public outreach events per year. The kit includes materials that help many hands-on activities. It comes with a training video, a manual with suggested activities, star charts, and much more.

We also had elections. The nominees for president were: Chris Milford and Matt Golz. The nominees for vice president were Chris Milford and Tricia Johnson. Dean was the only one running for treasurer. The nominees for Secretary were: Chris Milford, Jennifer Rogers, and Will Swearson. The results are below:

President: Matt Golz Vice President: Tricia Johnson Treasurer: Dean Smith Secretary: Chris Milford Public Relations: -------To be filled at the next meeting------

After elections we had our current events part of the meeting. Milly shared pictures of the Genesis spacecraft crash and talked about the next mission for the Cassini spacecraft: Titan.

The meeting was adjourned around 8:30 pm.