May marks the month when the Chapter will elect its new Officers for the next 12 months. I would like to thank the current board for doing a wonderful job. We accomplished some nice goals in the last 12 months, saw the chapter grow with some YOUNGER individuals interested in astronomy, and held some major outreach events. And to top it off, we presented ourselves to the world on a complete new website, and overall, we had fun doing it

As in previous years, Debbie Jones has volunteered to head our election committee. She will collect the names of the nominees for the new board, and conduct the elections during the meeting on May 16th. All current board members will run for another year for the same positions currently held, if no other nominations have been made. So if you would like to volunteer for one of the 3 board positions, director, observing supervisor or secretary, please send an email to Debbie at debbie@ceastronomy.org. Debbie will also accept nominations from the floor during the meeting. So get busy if you have time run for one of the offices and send Debbie an email!!

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

Another International Year of Astronomy Event!

Thanks to Chapter member Jim Honeycutt the Covington Library will show images made by local amateur astronomers in the region, so far Charlie Elliott Chapter members! The exhibit is open during normal library hours and can be seen in one of the meeting rooms. A sign guiding you to the exhibit is displayed at the entrance.

Images displayed so far are from Jim Honeycutt, Larry Owens, Stephen Ramsden and Theo Ramakers. If you have an image which you would like to add, please go to the library and add it to the collection.

The library will show the images until May 19th. So if you are in the neighborhood, please stop by and enjoy!

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

The Charlie Elliott Chapter is a member of the NSN Network, so we suggest to join the call if you can.
The subject of this month’s NSN conference call will be “Our Sun”

Our Sun Telecon: Tuesday, April 21st
This is a reminder for the telecon in our Monthly IYA 2009 Series (all beginning at 6 PM Pacific 9 PM Eastern) with Dr. Laura Peticolas on the May theme: Our Sun. Dr. Peticolas is a solar scientist working as Co-Principal Investigator, Center for Science Education, at UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Lab.

To log into the Telecon on Tuesday, April 21st, between 5:45 – 6:00pm (Pacific Time):
Use the IYA toll-free conference call line: 1-888-455-9236. This number will be used for the whole year.

An operator will answer and:

You will be asked for the passcode: NIGHT SKY NETWORK
You will be asked to give your NAME and the CLUB you belong to, and number of people listening with you.

If you have any questions or are having any difficulties logging into the Night Sky Network, send an email to: nightskyinfo@astrosociety.org

The download of the PowerPoint and more can be found here:

http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/download-view.cfm?Doc_ID=372

View the Online Version of Our Sun Telecon:

http://www.astrosociety.org/nsntelecon/

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

The Chapter’s 100 hours of Astronomy has come to an end. It was a long but very rewarding 4 days. We held 4 outreach events which were published on the 100HOA website, and the people that visited us during the event were very excited about what they could observe. I would like to thank all participants, Dale, Debbie, Marie, Clevis, Jon, Stephen, Ken, Alesia, Kristen and Theo for their hard work and dedication in making this such a great success.

Following an article about the event in the Rockdale and Newton Citizen a week earlier, it started with the Covington Library event on April 2nd. Despite the clouds and misty rain, 5 interested people made the trip to the event. Since they could not look at Saturn through our scopes we showed them the movie Ring World and had a talk with the kids about the solar system. Theo Ramakers took care of this event.

Friday evening was a closed event for students, family members and friends of the George Walton Academy in Monroe. Our Dale Harrison was the coordinator. Jon Wood, Clevis and Debbie Jones, and Theo Ramakers set up their scopes up next to the base ball field and were happy when the lights on the field went out while Debbie gave them a grand tour through the binos. We had about 30 individuals attend this star party and we overheard some of the students saying how much they were learning about astronomy and how it would help them in class!!

Saturday marked two events. A solar event in the Newton Shopping Center in Covington and a Star Party at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. The Solar event did attract around 75 individuals who took a look at the Sun. While Stephen Ramsden, Marie Lott, Debbie and Clevis Jones gave further explanations of what they were seeing, Theo was was working to bring the people to come over. Despite the fact that the sky was 75% overcast at the beginning of the event, almost 30 interested people showed up at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center at night. Clevis, Stephen, Theo and a new friend Jim brought their scopes out, and Ken provided additional explanations. It was a real challenge with the fast moving clouds to give everyone a chance to look at our Moon, Saturn with its moons Titan, Enceladus and Dione,and not to forget the Orion nebula and the galaxy pair M81 and M82. However, the good thing about the clouds was that it gave us the chance to have some great discussions with the visitors!!

Over all, this was a very successful 100 Hours of Astronomy!! Click here for some pictures of the events.
Thanks again to all who made this happen
Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

The Charlie Elliott Chapter of the AAC is participating with four events in the 100 Hours of Astronomy, an event of the International Year of Astronomy. The Chapter will join thousands of individuals and clubs all over the world between April 2nd and April 5th in reaching out to the general public and have as many as possible individuals looking through a telescope as Galileo did 400 years ago.

We are looking for chapter members to participate in some or at least one of the following events:

• April 2, 7:00 p.m. Covington Library. Movie and Telescope viewing. The library is located at 7116 Floyd Street in Covington.
• April 3, 7:00 p.m. A closed event for Students, Family members and Friends of the George Walton Academy.
• April 4, 11:00 a.m. Solar Viewing at the Newton Plaza, 3170 US Highway 278 in Covington (next to Wolf Camera).
• April 4, 7:00 p.m. Telescope session at the Charlie Elliott WC Observing field in Mansfield.

Please let me know which event you can participate in.
Thanks,
Theo

Moon rocks on display this Saturday at astronomy presentation, pot luck dinner, and viewing at CE Wildlife Center

Thanks to the efforts of CE chapter membr and Oxford College astronomy instructor Jim Honeycutt, Moon dust and rocks brought back to Earth by astronauts from Apollo missions 15, 16 and 17 will be on display as part of the program this Saturday, March 28, at 4 p.m. by the Charlie Elliott chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club. Astronomy and physics instructor Fred Buls of the Clarkston Campus of Georgia Perimeter College, will talk about “radiometric dating”, a technique scientists use to determine with great accuracy the age of our solar system and even the universe itself.

The program is free, open to all and starts at 4 p.m. at the CE Wildlife Visitor Center with a potluck dinner being served; Mr. Buls’ program begins immediately afterwards. His program will be geared to the general public and will include a number of graphics and visual aids to better illustrate what certainly seems too complicated for the average Joe.

The CE chapter of the Atlanta Astronomy Club is open to all persons and meets monthly at the CE Wildlife Visitors Center. More info online at http://ceastronomy.org, or contact Ken Poshedly at 678-516-1366; e-mail to poshedly@bellsouth.net.

Yesterday the world wide Globe at Night Event kicked off. We did discuss this in our last meeting and I urge all members to participate in this. Follow the link here to download a pdf explaining what to do to determine how dark the sky is in your location. This pdf is the same as the sheets you were handed in the meeting. Remember, we are not looking for the darkest skies, we are looking at how light polution affects the sky at night in your area.

When you determined how dark (or light) the sky is, you can report the result on-line as explained in the instructions, but we also would like to record this info for our Chapter and compare them to the data of some other members. So please send me an email (director@ceastronomy.org) with the coordinates of the location, time of check and the result. If you do not have the time to report this on-line, we are happy to do this for you if you let us know that you want us to report it for you.

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

Marie Lott, received the following email from the Astronomical League Galileo Club coordinator regarding the use of the Galileoscope which became available for sale earlier this week

Subject: Re: AL Galileo Club
Hello Marie.

I do not plan to change the rules, but we accept observations done with the GalileoScope. Our range was based on Galileo’s observations. The purpose of the GalileoScope is not to replicate but to represent. Go for it and don’t worry about it.

Aaron
Coordinator

This is a reminder, and follow up for the event at the Rock Eagle 4H Center in Eatonton next week Tuesday, February 10. If you live in the Charlie Elliott area and have the time to participate, it would be great if you could attend and bring your scope. Stephen Ramsden and myself will be there. Jon might have to drop some people off that night and probably cannot make it. If you live in, or on the other side of Atlanta, you rather might participate in an event closer to you like the Hopewell Middle school event a week later.

Otherwise, please let me know if you are coming, and looking forward seeing you there.
For directions see the announcement from last week on this page.

Clear skies,
Theo

Well the weather looks pretty good for tonight at Charlie Elliott. And in addition to great observing we should expect the following surprises: ISS at mag – 3.4 and Iridium 14 at mag -6.8

ISS Flyby
Appears 18h46m59s 0.7mag az:309.4° NW at the horizon, Culmination 18h51m59s -3.4mag az:226.1° SW h:56.6°, Disappears 18h56m57s -0.7mag az:142.5° SE horizon; distance: 430.1km height above Earth: 363.6km elevation of sun: -9°

Iridium 14 Satellite
At 19h28m43s a flare from MMA2 (Left antenna) Magnitude=-6.8mag location: Azimuth= 28.6° NNE altitude= 49.2° in constellation Camelopardalis. Height above Earth=713.1 km distance to satellite=907.9 km. Brightness estimate may be unreliable and flare time accurate to a few seconds.

Theo