Tuesday, December 4, 2007

December Meeting Cancelled

Since the final meeting falls so close to finals and we are all busy, the next meeting will be in January: 1/8/08.

If you're still interested in going to Chicago over break, check your email.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Tshirt winner & observing reminder

The winner of the shirt design contest was design #1. Thanks to everyone who voted, and start thinking about if you want a shirt and if you would prefer a tshirt/hoodie/either/both.

We are scheduled to have observing tomorrow at 8:30 when a group of Boy Scouts visits the observatory, but depending on the weather it might or might not happen. Stay tuned to your inboxes.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Meeting: November 6

Hi All,

Here's the recap from the meeting:

We started off by talking about the T-shirt voting (see previous post). Then we moved on to regular meeting stuff.

Future Observing:
Thurs. Nov. 8 @ Dr. Lewis' leave from student center at 7:30pm
Thurs. Nov. 15 @ Weaver Observatory, Cub Scouts will be there 8:30
Mon. Nov. 19 @ Weaver Observatory 8-9:30pm

Trips:
The trip to Booneshoft was not so impressive, but we are planning to go next semester and try to have more control over the show.
Chicago is booked this month. Email Dr. Fleisch if you want to go over winter break or early next semester or if you have suggestions.
The non-credit UK trip has about 8 of you interested. If anyone else is possibly interested email Dr. Fleisch right away.

Comet:
The comet 17P Holmes is on its way out. You might be able to see it in the constellation Perseus (down from Cassiopeia). It is slightly fuzzy.

Thanks to Keith for presenting on Deep Space galaxies!

Next meeting we will be talking about Sky & Telescope pictures.

The Atrium Display will be put up over Christmas break.

Our next meeting is Tuesday, December 4th at 9:30pm.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Tshirt Design Voting Post

Here is how you vote:

Look at the options. Send an email to wittenberg.astronomyclub@gmail.com with the subject "astroclub tshirt vote". In the body of the email, include your name and the number of the shirt you are voting for.

Voting will run from Wednesday November 7 until Saturday November 10 at 5pm. Votes before or after this time will not be counted. Voting more than once means all your votes are thrown out.

And now the shirts (in the order the designs were submitted, if you were wondering):

The front sides for #1 & #2 will be the club's name.
-----------------------

#1



----------------------

#2- if this shirt is the winner, a version with clean lines will be provided.



----------------------

#3

Friday, October 19, 2007

Music of the Spheres reminder

Remember, Music of the Spheres is tonight at 7:30 in Bayley. If it's clear afterwards we'll have observing over at Weaver.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Observing postponed

Hey everyone,
The sky has come down with a severe case of cloud cover. Since side effects include total inability to see anything interesting, we'll reschedule our dark-sky trip for sometime after fall break.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

tshirt reminder (updated)

If you have an idea for an astronomy club tshirt/hoodie, remember that designs are due in by Tuesday October 9Update: by the end of Wednesday October 10 to Erin (s09.ekapp). Make sure you have attached a picture file of your design to your email.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Meeting: October 2

Hey everyone. Here's what we talked about at October's meeting:

Astronomy News:
We had 3 news presentations.
1) Lunar Impact Monitoring -how often meteors collide with the moon
2) Dawn Mission Project - ion propulsion, photography of Vesta and Ceres
3) Double Helix Nebula (aka DNA nebula)
**a new club goal is for everyone to see a nebula**

Trip Planning:
Dayton Planetarium - Sat. Oct. 27th 1pm-4:30pm
Chicago - Nov 3-4th or Nov 10-11th
Cleaveland - next semester
U.K. - right after graduation, 10 days, $1700

Observing schedule:
see club website or other posts labelled observing

Constellation Mythology:
We are hoping that several people will learn about a few constellations each (which stars, the past mythology, maybe of several cultures) to share during observing activities. Let us know if you are interested.

Music of the Spheres:
presentation Oct. 19th at 7:30pm in Bayley Auditorium by Keith Ward
There will possibly be other times of presentation of this.

If you are interested in the Atrium Display, SETI, the Allen Telescope Array, email any of the officers.

Also, email T-shirt ideas to Erin at s09.ekapp@witt

Our next meeting is Tuesday, November 6th at 9:30pm. See you there!

Monday, October 1, 2007

Meeting reminder & Parents' Weekend observing

Next meeting is tomorrow, October 2.

This weekend observing was great on Friday and basically a wash on Saturday.

The good news: We had at least 93 people attend just one observing session!
The bad news: It was the Saturday one, so they were all squished into the dome or they got to stand on the deck and look at clouds or they were trapped in the stairwell. If you were trapped in the stairs or otherwise bored, we hope you come back and try for clearer skies.

So we got to look at Albireo both nights, although it wasn't until quite late on Saturday that it cleared up enough.

The club is starting up a logbook for a variety of reasons, including: we want to know what part of campus we're reaching, whether we have a lot of repeat attendees, how often we see non-students, and also Student Senate asks us questions during budget hearings like "who comes to your activities?" So if you're in the observatory for observing at all, even if you're there every single time and we all know who you are but especially if you've never signed before, please sign the logbook.

So remember: tomorrow. Pizza. Pop. 319 Science. 9:30.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Observing: Tuesday, Sept. 18

A friendly warm night was popular for sky knowledge and general stargazing. Jupiter is increasingly lower in the sky, making it harder to see with the binoculars on the deck. The moon was at first quarter, so the sky was fairly bright. The Summer Triangle is straight overhead during observing this time of year, so interesting telescope sights like Albireo and the Ring Nebula are more easily visible. Not so visible was M-13, the globular cluster in Hercules, which was wiped out by a combination of haze, moonlight, and light pollution.

Our next scheduled observing session is Saturday October 29th, during Parents' Weekend, so if you have family members on campus be sure to bring them by.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Observing: Wednesday, Sept. 5

Our first observing of the year was a great success, even though the weather conspired to annoy us. Despite a solid week of perfectly clear skies, it managed to be hazy, but in any case we didn't let that stop us.

Through the telescope we looked at Jupiter and its Galilean moons, Albireo, the double star at the head of Cygnus, M-57, the Ring Nebula, which is part of Lyra, and very last we looked at M-13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. Out on the deck we saw the usual suspects for late summer observing, such as the Summer Triangle (Lyra, Cygnus, and Aquila), Cassiopeia, Pegasus, and the Little Dipper. The new binoculars with the parallel mount stayed trained on Jupiter all evening (until it went below the trees, anyway).

The next class-scheduled session is Tuesday, September 18.

Meeting: September 4

Hi Astronomy fans! Our first meeting of the year was a HUGE success. Thanks to all who came.

Here's the meeting rundown:
Introductions- We introduced the officers and Dr. Fleisch. Our email addresses can be found on the W.A.S. webpage. Feel free to contact any of us about club events, ideas for the club, etc.

The goal of astronomy club is to get you involved with astronomy at any level you want to be involved. That said we talked about observing sessions (the schedule for them is posted in the previous post) and other club activities.

Activities include:
Observing sessions, going to Dark Sky sites, taking trips to planetariums and other neat places, having guest speakers, maintaining the observatory, deciding how to spend our money from Student Senate, and outreach programs.
We also need to make one or more radio spots for WUSO to broadcast during sporting events, work on a 3D rendering of the observatory for GoogleEarth, and be ready for the Atrium Display System LCD screens which are coming soon.

Scheduled Events:
Aside from scheduled class observing sessions, on October 19th Keith Ward will be presenting "Music of the Spheres". If you would like to help in any way, email the officers or Dr. Fleisch.

Finally we mentioned astrobiology, SETI, and a summer course in the U.K.

Suggestions made by members were:
Observing Kuiper belt objects and dwarf planets
Photographing galaxies
Hosting a speaker on Cosmology
Learning the mythology of constellations

Thanks for a great meeting!

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, October 1st at 9:30pm.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Observing Sessions: Astronomy Class

These sessions are open to everyone.

That said, they were scheduled for the benefit of the astronomy class, who have to do sky knowledge for an actual grade. As such, there were will be a lot of constellation-and-star-names learning, as well as any planets that are out.

So, weather permitting,* the observatory will be open on the following dates and times:

Wednesday, 9/5 9:30-11:00
Tuesday, 9/18 9:00-10:30
Saturday, 9/29 9:00-10:30
Monday, 10/8 9:00-10:30
Friday, 10/19 8:30-10:00
Wednesday, 10/31 8:30-10:00
Thursday, 11/8 8:00-9:30
Monday, 11/19 8:00-9:30
Tuesday, 11/27 7:30-9:00
Friday, 12/7 7:30-9:00

*weather permitting=visible stars. Complete cloud cover all the time, thunderstorms, rain, snow, tornadoes, and heavy fog are good reasons to not come, since no one will be there.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Meeting reminder

The first meeting of the semester is:

Tuesday, September 4, at 9:30 pm, in room 319 of the science building. Open to all whether you are on our mailing list or not.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Celestial Gazing and Lunar Surprising*, August 24

The astronomy club is officially on for the semester. Last night was our inaugural observing session. There were clouds and a telescope pin broke. But no worries, the clouds went away sometimes and the pin thing is fixable. But in the daytime.

We will be present at the activities fair on Thursday August 30 so come visit us and sign up for our mailing list if you're not on it already.

The Tuesday after that should be our first meeting, official announcement forthcoming. Same bat time, same bat channel.

*I volunteered at a planetarium over the summer with a Mr. Rogers show. You all watched Mr. Rogers, right? King Friday called it "celestial gazing and lunar surprising" and if it's good enough for King Friday it's good enough for us. All club-scheduled observing sessions will now carry this tag (as opposed to observing requested by groups, which will still be observing).

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Observing & a sneak preview

Even now freshmen are on campus, and that means a new semester is about to start. And the astronomy club will start it with two things:

1. Observing on Friday August 24 at 9:30 at Weaver. This is near the anniversary of Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune.

2. A new and sleeker webpage which will debut sometime in September. Sneak preview:

Friday, July 20, 2007

Moon-landing observing!

For everyone who didn't get Dr. Fleisch's email, or didn't read it, or forgot about it, and is not going to a Harry Potter book party (cough), tonight at 9:15 is observing during, apparently, the one time of night it's supposed to be cloudy. But even if it's cloudy, while you huddle around the telescope hoping for a break, you can celebrate the 38th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Solstice observing

Okay everyone, it's officially been summer for eight hours and seven minutes as of my typing this sentence. That means new and exciting stars to look at. And if you're inclined to do so, there's observing tomorrow night at Weaver at 9:30pm (as always, weather permitting). Right now Venus and Saturn are in the western sky, while Jupiter is very bright in Scorpius in the east. As for constellations, the ever-famous Summer Triangle is starting to creep higher in the sky along with Hercules, Ophiuchus, and Scoprius, while Leo's still hanging around with Saturn and Venus over toward the west.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

New Officers!!

The new officers for Astronomy Club were elected! They are:
President- Nick Gladman
Vice President- Erin Kapp
Secretary/Treasurer- Whitney Foster
Congratualtions and hope everyone has a great summer!

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Meeting: Tuesday, May 1

Hey y'all, it's the last meeting of the spring semester and okay, I lied, there was not pizza and drinks. There was cookies and chips and drinks instead.

New equipment is on the way, including the Bluestar telescope adapter so we can control one of our telescopes wirelessly, a pair of 20x80 binoculars, and tripod and parallelogram mount for these binoculars. The book "99 Sights for Binocular Users" is already here, in Dr Fleisch's office. This has used up our student senate budget for the spring semester.

There was a new planet discovered which is Earthlike, the article we looked at is here.

There are over 220 planets that have been found orbiting other stars now. Most are large, jupiter-sized, very close to their star, and very hot, and Gleise 581c is the one which looks most like there could actually be water on it.

Seti@home is a neat use of your computer's offtime, so if you're interesting in learning more about it visit their website or talk to Dr Fleisch. Or both.

Speaking of radio telescopes, Witt's Society of Physics Students has restored the radio telescopes on the science building roof, which we took a brief field trip to see. There are two, they are very cool, and should definitely last longer than the last ones because they are weather-proofed and having nice covers made for them. If you have a chance take a look at them. Radio telescopes don't give pictures, like the observatory telescope; instead they pick up radio waves (hence the name), and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has a page on how they work, although ours are not as large as the ones in the picture, nor do they have one of the dishes on them.

We also briefly discussed the WOW signal, a radio pickup from the 70s.

Summer observing sessions are on the Member Information page of the website. On the June 22 observing session, Keith, a club member who is also a music major, will be giving a talk about the music of the spheres before the observing session, something to keep in mind if you're in Springfield over the summer.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Mercy St John's postponed, and other things.

As you might have guessed from not hearing anything about it, the visit to Mercy St John's has been postponed. The hospital is definitely interested in having us there, but we haven't been able to find a date that works yet, and the weather is not cooperating in any case.

On the other hand, the weather on Girl Scout Science Night last week cooperated fully. After five consecutive years of being clouded out, there was a great turnout from the girls and their parents, as Girl Scouts filled the dome, deck, and the grass outside. The event wound up going past midnight so that everyone in the group got a chance to look at Saturn.

The next meeting is still scheduled for next Tuesday, May 1st, where we'll probably talk about the Earthlike planet just found, among other things. And of course pizza and drinks as always.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Hocking Hills trip postponed

Due to horrible weather, the observing trip to Hocking Hills originally scheduled for tonight is being postponed. Keep an eye on your email for the new date and time.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Meeting: Tuesday, April 4

Our first meeting back from break!

First off, activities this month: there's no confirmation from Mercy St. John's on the date we can visit them yet, so definitely write it down in pencil, if at all. Next Saturday, April 14, is observing at Mandy's house in Hocking Hills. An email will be going out about this, but we'll be leaving from the Student Center parking lot at 7:30. Friday April 20 is Girl Scout Science Night, for those of you interested, with more details to come on that and also on the observatory spring cleaning later in the month, April 22. Those will be arranged more definitively closer to their actual date.

The 40 or so files we recently recovered, all of which dealt with the history and building of the observatory, have been read through by four of us. A lot of it was letters, catalogs, price quotes, and other things, but here are some of the more interesting facts:
-The grand total budget was $42,500 in 1931, which is $496,561 today: almost half a million dollars.

-The telescope itself was about $8,500-$9,000, which is $99,312-$105,154 today. This is all according to the inflation calculator at westegg.com.

-One of the proposals included putting in a meteorological station, to be used by aircraft, including those at the nearby air force base. The catch was very accurate measurements would have to be taken three times a day, seven days a week, 365.25 days per year. The proposed staff to do this was two student workers, who in exchange for this extremely rigid routine would be able to attend Wittenberg free of charge: no tuition, room, or board. The university (then Wittenberg College) turned it down. Back then, most of the departments had one faculty member; some of the larger ones had two. Their reason for refusing the proposal didn't have to do with the idea that the kind of weather station involved would be better suited to a large university who could maintain a paid staff to do the measurements- they didn't want to give the student workers the free ride.

-There were originally five proposals for the telescope design. Two were dismissed for being of inferior quality; of the remaining three, the lowest bidder got the job.

-The dedication ceremony was part of commencement for that year. It also happened in June. Semesters, as far as we could glean from the documents, ran from August-January and then February-June.

-Some things are eternal, like internal arguing and passing of blame between different contractors.

-As mentioned in a previous post, Heber Curtis, winner of the Curtis-Shapley debate, gave the dedication speech.

-Back then, astronomy was its own department. Its faculty member was Hugh G. Harp, and the observatory was very much his project. Eventually astronomy was absorbed into earth science, and only integrated into physics relatively recently.

-The Weavers, who donated money toward the observatory and from whence it derives its name, originally gave $6,000 toward a telescope, then upped their donation to $20,000 and finally around $50,000. The final budget for the observatory/telescope/instruments was around $80,000. ($70,102, $23,3675, $584,189, and $934,703, respectively)

-The observatory used to keep paper observing sheets, which recorded how many people visited, the weather, what was observed, and other things like that at each observing event. The club would like to readopt this tradition, except update it to some time past the Great Depression.

Right now, the observatory is partially occupied by The Torch and the psychology department. The club would really, really like all that classroom space and storage space back, since right now actual astronomy is limited to the dome and a small janitorial area. With the additional room, the astronomy club and astronomy classes could have more events, and a place for people to gather and talk about astronomy (and look at club items like books and magazines) other than Dr Fleisch's office.

The budget results are in! We asked for $1200, and got $400 for the fall semester and $550 for the spring semester from student senate, which is a pretty good turnout.

We looked at some more stuff on the Hubble Heritage Site, like new pictures of a barred spiral galaxy. Clicking on any gallery picture and then the "caption" or "fast facts" links at the top of the page will lead you to more information about that picture.

Talking about galaxies, some questions about the Milky Way came up. As far as size and shape, it's a fairly average spiral or maybe barred spiral galaxy (it's hard to tell from inside), which is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, M-31, in a few million years.

Dr Fleisch has a book in his office about galaxies, called... "Galaxies." If you want to look at it stop by and check it out.

It's been found that stable orbits for planets around binary star pairs do exist, within some parameters, so for all you other Star Wars fans, Tatooine could still be out there. It's even reasonably likely, seeing that current estimates run that about half the stars we can see have some kind of planet, although not necessarily a habitable one.

Speaking of habitable planets, if it weren't for the moon Earth probably wouldn't be one. The axis of the Earth wobbles very slowly, rotating between three north pole stars with approximately 26000 years between each star, leading to very stable seasonal cycles. If the moon wasn't there, simulations indicate the Earth would instead be on a cycle so dramatic that seasons would change significantly every few hundred years, and the probability of the evolution of life would be drastically affected.

Nick Gladman has been elected president for the 2007-2008 school year. Other officer positions are being sorted out and more information will come through email.

The next meeting is Tuesday, May 1, last one of the semester. See you then!

Monday, March 26, 2007

Activities: Observatory Group Visit

On Saturday, the observatory had a whole bunch of visitors in the form of Gamma Delta, who came to visit the observatory. Dr Fleisch talked to the group in Bayley Auditorium first, but then the sky unexpectedly cleared up, so everyone went over to the observatory to look at Saturn. Despite being cloudy all day it was remarkably clear, and multiple moons and the Cassini division were visible. With around sixty people there, the observatory was as full as it's ever been, but it was still a good visit, and everyone got a chance to look through the telescope.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Document day time set.

March 31 has been on the schedule as the day we meet to go over the documents about the building of Weaver Observatory, but there wasn't a time before. It's now:

Saturday, March 31, at 2pm

The webpage will be updated to reflect this as soon as I can make it let me edit. The webpage has been updated to reflect this.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Adventures in Budgeting

Uh-oh. Jon's taking over the Quasar. Well not really, but I thought it would be good for me to post at least once before giving up my position as treasurer.

Continuing from yesterday's meeting, the budget discussion continues. Erin and I attended the budget hearing in the bowels of Shouvlin before a panel of what appeared to be very hungry Student Senate members (they have to sit through a lot of hearings and as such keep snacks in front of them.) The hearing went fairly smoothly, and there were only a few details of our budget that they had questions about.

I'll receive notice about the panel's decision in the next few weeks and from there we can plan out next year's plans in more detail.

That's the news. See you all later.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Meeting: Tuesday, March 13

Tonight, we talked about our budget a lot.

The SkyScout that we ordered is here! Unfortunately it seems that the copper dome of the observatory might be interfering with the magnetic components of the SkyScout when we're on the deck of the observatory. We'll have to work with it some more, but it will definitely be useful on the ground and at dark sky sites.

Things we want to buy with this year's budget:
Guy Ottewell's Astronomy Calendar: $25- voted yes in the meeting
BlueStar telescope controller- previously mentioned a couple meetings ago
Oberwerk 20x80mm big binoculars and one of these types of mounts to put it on- will run about $500
That's not the actual mount we want to get, but the page we showed at the meeting does not have the option to direct link to a specific page.
99 Celestial Sights- $25
A book so we know what to look at with our new binoculars.

Things we want to put in the budget for next year:
At least one visiting speaker
Subscriptions to astronomy magazines
The Cosmos book of astronomy photographs
We would like to plan trips for next year, but Student Senate has some pretty strict rules about how university funds can be used for trips. We'll try to get this clarified at the budget meeting for the next year, which coincidentally is tomorrow, March 14.
So if you have anything you can think of to put in next year's budget, email one of the officers right away.

We also discussed the recent eclipse, which was basically cloudy for everyone in Ohio and surrounding areas. If we could have seen it, though, we would have seen the information described on this page:
the eclipse page we looked at in the meeting.

Why is the moon reddish during an eclipse? When the sun, earth, and moon are lined up in that order, the Earth's atmosphere extending above its surface refracts the light from the sun. The blue light scatters most, while the red makes it through the most. This is why the moon is tinted toward the red end of the spectrum- more of the light from the blue end has been bounced away by the atmosphere. The page linked above also has some information about upcoming lunar and solar eclipses.

The New Horizons Mission was also the source of much admiration as new pictures from the spacecraft's swing by Jupiter were released. Click on the Gallery link to see them.

The next event is the going-over-documents day on March 31, and the next observing session is April 14 at Hocking Hills.

We were reading a copy of the club constitution today, which includes provisions for a publication named "The Quasar," so the blog has been renamed accordingly.

Also, tomorrow, March 14 aka 3.14 is Pi Day. So hug your favorite irrational number.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

See the lunar eclipse!

Saturday night there's a total lunar eclipse: the first article I found was this one, but here's a less city-centric one. The first link has some interesting graphics & audio tidbits linked on the right. NASA also has information about lunar eclipses.

So weather permitting and clouds cooperating, find a dark spot and see the eclipse- the last total eclipse happened in 2004.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Observing: Friday, January 23

Tonight Boy Scouts visited the observatory! It was cold and icy but they came anyway, and we got to look at winter constellations like Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Gemini, Auriga, and Taurus, as well as the always popular Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and Cassiopeia. Bright stars in these constellations included Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph, Rigel, Sirius, Procyon, Castor, Pollux, Aldebaran, and Polaris. We also saw three things through the telescope: the first-quarter moon in the west, right near the Pleiades, the Orion Nebula (M42) toward the south, and Saturn in a generally east direction.

Lots of good questions were asked, and all links will open in a new window.
What is the Great Red Spot on Jupiter?
Why is Pluto no longer a planet?
What causes meteors, and how are they different from meteorites?
What's a meteor shower?
What is it that they just found on Titan?
Can we see the things left on the moon with a telescope? (scroll down to "The Moon")
How do we know the moon landings weren't a hoax?
Is there a southern pole star?
What is precession?
What's a nebula?
How are stars born?
What will happen to the sun?
Will the sun turn into a black hole?
What are wormholes? (Note: wormholes are more theoretical than these other questions, so there are three links to three different articles: the other two here and here, to provide a variety of explanations at varying levels: the first link is from Scientific American, the second from National Geographic, and the third from the Astronomy Cafe Ask the Astronomer)
Is the Hubble the biggest telescope?

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Meeting: Tuesday, February 20

So it took a couple tries, but we finally had the February meeting. All of the dates mentioned below will be listed on the Member Information page of the website by the end of Wednesday.

It's confirmed that there will be Boy Scouts visiting the observatory this Friday, February 23, at 8pm. If it's cloudy, the session will be postponed until March 2nd, which is the last Friday classes are held before spring break. Don't feel obligated to come if you were planning on leaving.

We're trying to set up a date with Mercy St John's to go and take telescopes to patients there who are bedridden and can't leave the hospital. Also, Dr Fleisch has talked to Mercy Hospice and the Hospice of Dayton, both of which are interested in an event of the same kind. As well, there are groups for kids who have gone through difficulty, either by being severely injured themselves or by having lost family members, and we think this would be a good project for not only the patients, but for the club as well to share some of what we do with people in need. There is also a plan to buy or create some kind of device that would render photographs of astronomical phenomena tactilely for the benefit of the blind.

Trudy Bell will be writing a piece on historic observatories for Ohio Magazine this summer, and Weaver is one of them! Look for this magazine if you have a chance.

Summer observing sessions have also been added to the schedule. They are all Fridays at 8:30 pm: June 22 (the day after summer solstice), July 20 (the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon), and August 24 (back to school). The following Saturday is the backup day for each of these events.

Girl Scout Science Night is a great event that all the science departments at Wittenberg participate in, and we always try to have observing although in the history of the event it keeps being cloudy. That's on Friday, April 20th, and the observatory part will happen sometime around or after 10pm.

Remember all those documents that were recovered about the history of Weaver? We'll be going through them on Saturday, March 31, at a time yet to be decided.

It's nearing the end of the year, and that means the observatory needs cleaned. Spring cleaning and possible painting will happen on Sunday, April 22.

The SkyScout has made it through the acquisitions part of the buying process, which is good news. We're also planning to purchase the BlueStar telescope adapter so we can control telescopes using the program Starry Night. Anyone on campus with a campus Windows account (students, faculty, and staff) can access Starry Night in on the class (not class programs) drive by going to Class>Physics>Astronomy>Starry Night Pro.

Also, Wittenberg's chapter of the Society of Physics Students earlier embarked on a really cool project to restore two defunct radio telescopes that used to sit up on the science building, and they're almost done! After that it will be possible to do radio observations of the sky, in addition to the visible light observing we can already do.

If there are any books, software, or pieces of equipment you think the club can use, please email one of the officers or Dr Fleisch with your idea-- the club has a budget for the year and we'd like to put as much of it to use as possible.

We also looked at the Hubble Heritage Site during the meeting with the projector. It's one of the sites linked from the Astronomy Links section of the website, but it's here as well.

The next meeting is Tuesday March 13, the first Tuesday back after break; we will be discussing officer elections for the coming year.

Friday, February 16, 2007

snow!

For Valentine's Day, the observatory got a nice snow blanket.

Next observing session, someone bring a St Bernard just in case.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Observing: Friday, January 9

Really clear skies alternated with cloudy periods for a while, but soon it clouded over completely. While we could see, though, the visibility was excellent, and we looked at the Orion Nebula, M42, through the telescope, using both the regular eyepiece and two other filters to test the filter and try and get better clarity. We tried to look at Saturn, but once the telescope was lined up only a few people managed to get a look before it clouded over permanently.

Constellations we saw included Orion, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Gemini, Taurus, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, and Cepheus. Stars were Rigel, Saiph, Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka, Bellatrix, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, El Nath, Capella, Castor, Pollux, Procyon, Sirius, and Polaris.

We also decided that we need to buy more working red lights so we can see what we're doing without ruining our night vision.

Since we could observe tonight, there won't be any observing tomorrow, January 20.

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Meeting: Tuesday, January 9th

Full moons are on 2/2, 3/3, 4/1, and 4/29 this spring, so we've scheduled events around them this semester, including observing at both Weaver and Hocking Hills. They will be listed in the Upcoming Activities section of the club webpage by the end of Wednesday.

There are several out-of-town trips that the club could go on. Email Dr Fleisch if you are interested in any of these.

One-weekend trips would take place over the weekend of March 23rd. The possibilities are:
Cleveland: the museum, an arboreum, Rock N Roll Hall of Fame, any other events. Transportation would be Wittvans or individual cars, and if we make it a one-day trip the only cost would be food and admission to places other than the museum. For a two-day trip, a hotel would cost an additional $50 per person, plus food.
Chicago: the Adler planetarium, the Field Museum, the aquarium, the art institute, and many many other things that Chicago has to offer. Transportation would be a one or two night stay, leaving Friday evening for a two-night and Saturday morning for a one-night. Hotel would be approximately $60 per person.
Washington DC: the National Air and Space Museum is the main attraction. It would be a two-night trip at $60 per person with about $250 in airfare.
New York City: the Hayden Planetarium, other NYC attractions. Another two-night stay, $250 airfare, $70 per night per person in hotel costs.

These multiple-day trips would take place over spring break, which is March 5-9.

Lick Observatory is near San Francisco. The club would be able to get time to take data and make observations on one of the big telescopes, and it would be a 4-5 day trip. Cost would be about $450 for airfare, $300 for five days of rooms, and another $30 to rent cars or a van.
Scotland and England would take up pretty much all of break, leaving the first Friday night from Cincinnati and flying to London, where it would be a 3-4 day stay, seeing attractions such as Greenwich Observatory and Stonehenge. After that, there would be a 3-4 day stay in Edinburgh for the sights in Scotland, and the club would try to fly back to Cincy out of Edinburgh. It will probably cost around $700 in airfare, $700 in lodging, and $250 for a rail pass to travel.

With any of these trips, no one is required to stay with the group for all or any of the time, so if you want to go with the club and then visit different attractions, that's possible too.

If you are interested in helping read through and summarize the documents about Weaver's history which were recently recovered, email Nick (s08.ngladman).

We're still working on the Friday night lecture series (which may or may not actually be on Friday nights). If you have any ideas at all for how the series should be marketed to the campus and Springfield communities, possible topics for lectures, or anything else related to the series, email them Nick (s08.ngladman) and also Dr. Fleisch.

The meetings for the spring semester will be on February 6th, March 13th, April 3rd, and May 1st. The Meetings section of the club webpage will be updated with the date, time, and location of the coming meeting each month. At the current time they are all at 9:30 in room 319 of the BDK building, as they've been all this year.