A great and very good attended meeting. Chapter director Steve Siedentop started the meeting with opening remarks which was followed by Ken Poshedly with a talk about the upcoming ALCon2013. John Towne gave his monthly “What’s Up” for July/August and Jack Fitzmier finished the roundup with a presentation about planning your observing efforts using the AL’s observing programs. Some 5 very young astronomers attended with their parents and they were intreaged by the activity the sun produces, and loved NASA’s MSL mission with Curiosity. Great parents and kids, and we hope they will be back some time soon to explore the Universe from Charlie Elliott’s Astronomy field.

We reached out for two days to the Fayette County Cub Scouts at their summer camp at the Providence United Methodist Church in Fayetteville. About 185 scouts and 30 parents learned what the scouts need to do to earn their Astronomy Beltloops. They learned about the solar system, how a telescope works and build a telescope on a stick and discovered that refractors invert the image In addition, they setup an equatorial mount in teams of two in preparation for the beltloop. Every group asked to see the movie twice that showed how big stars can get. Outside they were able to take a look at the sun through our solar scopes and observe a few pinecones high in the trees through a regular scope. this was a very interested group of scouts and we hope that a good portion will earn the beltloops. Thanks Marie, Frank and Theo for their time to give these scouts a great time. click the image for the gallery.
Theo

Marie Lott, Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers did an outreach event for the 55 Cubcouts and their leaders during the Summer camp in SW Atlanta. We showed them how telescopes work and they did setup an EQ mount outside and focus on some far away tree tops. Inside we discussed the other items they needed to know about and they watched a movie about the sizes of bodies in the solarsystem and galaxie. Click the image for more.

A dinner and a movie meeting this time. We ended up watching a movie about the NASA Stereo mission: 3D Sun. A great short movie about the Sun and how we observe it. John Towne’s monthly presentation “What’s Up” was presented by Jeff Rebitzke, since John was travelling. The chapter decided that for Social Media purpose, it would change its name from “Charlie Elliott Chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club” to Charlie Elliott Astronomy”, optionally with the tag line “A chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club”. After some announcements and some further discussions off it went to the Jon Wood Field to continue our social discussions. No stars or planets to see this night. It was packed with clouds. A great meeting with about a dozen new faces
Click the image to see the gallery.
Clear skies,
Theo Ramakers

Steve Phillips, Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers went to help the scouts of Pack 724 earn their astronomy belt loops. The glass and mirrors kit showed the scouts what is inside telescopes and what happens to the object your watching when you look through the telescope. they learned about the planets and the solarsystem, they saw how big red giants will get compared to other stars and outside they had to setup a scope and focus on the leaves of some trees, because the clouds obsteructed the sky. Over all a very good event. Thanks Pack 724! Click the image to go to the gallery.

We were asked to train the CE Summer Camp counselors on astronomy. 6 counselors attended the session at the Jon Wood Field with Chapter members Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers. We started off with observing the close conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupitor together with the Hendersons, followed with explanations and observing of some of the night sky objects one can see at this time of the year. Here an image of the Close Conjunction of the planets.

This was a repeat for Rock Eagle. Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers presented to the visitors of at Rock Eagle in Eatonton. We presented the latest on the Curiosity Rover and discussed how NASA studies the Sun. Because of the cloudy conditions, we were not able to let the visitors observe the sun. We received some very good questions from the young attendants of the session which made us pretty happy.
Clear Skies,
Theo

This month our members elected a new Board and we like to gratulate Mr. Steve Siedentop as the new Director. Many thanks to the outgoing director Larry Owens for his service to the Chapter. Marie Lott and John Towne will continue for another year. Marie Lott and Theo Ramakers presented the new draft presentation from the NSN’s Planet Quest tool kit and discussed the new tools included. John Towne’s “What’s Up” concluded the meeting. In the meantime clouds had moved in so no observing after the meeting this month.

This year we were again part of JAKES Day at Charlie Elliott. About 50% of the 850 visitors came through our station and observed the Sun through 4 Solar Scopes and had the opportunity to learn about Mars and what happens on the sun inside the Discovery building. A great event with a lot of publicity for our Chapter.

We went for three days to Trickum Middle School with presentations about NASA’s MSL Curiosity Mission to Mars as well as observing the Sun. On the 13th, the students were able to see a leaping prominence that reached 120,000 miles above the surface of the Sun, a real treat!! 720 6th graders attended the session, many of them with a real interest in astronomy and/or space exploration. We would like to thank Mr. Patterson again for inviting us this year. (Sorry the school does not allow pictures of the students)