May 10, 2001
June 24, 2001
July 29, 2001
August 29, 2001
November 17, 2001
February 2, 2002
February 24, 2002
June 11, 2002
President Ralph Smith called the meeting to order at 7:30pm in room J70 of Joppa Hall at Harford Community College. President Smith welcomed all the attendees, both members and guests. Treasurer's report was $1400.00. Approximately $800.00 exists in the Physics department for astronomy use. Minutes of meeting of March 23 were read.
Work has begun in the observatory to have the floor raised. The walls have been removed, preparatory for electrical work.
Star Party reports: Tuckahoe had about 100 scopes set up, in spite of the lousy weather. Steve Channel reported that the weather was good for viewing on the Thursday night.
May 4 and 11 Club star parties will be held at Broad Creek.
Tom Rusek presented an update on the Education Outreach program. He, Mark Kregel and Steve Krall operated 4 telescope for 160 students at Magnolia Middle School recently during the recent heat wave. The week before they were at Joppatowne Elementary School. To date this year, the Outreach Committee has presented programs directly to 950 children in Harford County via the schools and scouting groups. Tom urged the necessity for getting the Observatory finished - many people are asking when this building will become operational.
Nominations for the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors were held. The following people were nominated to be on the ballot which will appear in the May, 2002 AstroViews.
NOTE: The entire Executive and Board served an extra year because there were no elections in May 2001 as there was never enough members present at the March or April 2001 meetings to have nominations.
Executive Committee Nominees:
President Lucy Albert Vice-President Tom Rusek Secretary Steve Channel Treasurer Carol Channel
Board of Directors:
The 7 Board of Directors rotate their time - 4 are elected one year, 3 the next & so forth. To offset the difficulties that arose last year, Richard Hagenston suggested that Ernie Webb (who can only serve one year if elected) and 2 others with the least number of votes will serve one year. The other 4 persons will serve the 2 years.
Nominees for the Board of Directors:
Ernie Webb Charles Jones Ralph Smith Wayne French
Bill Geertsen Warren Hoover Grace Wyatt
A multi-media talk by Dr. Ian Griffin, Director of Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute followed the nominations. Dr. Griffin discussed the "Taranaki Event", an asteroid that exploded in the sky above the North Island of New Zealand at 4:12pm local time on July 7, 1999. The event was recorded and investigated extensively by the Auckland City Observatory, of which Dr. Griffin was director at the time, and as a result, a Near Earth Object search programme was developed. The talk was exceedingly interesting and entertaining. Dr. Griffin, who resides in Harford County, expressed a great interest in setting up an NEO program at our Observatory as soon as it is operational. Many members expressed the same excited interest.
The meeting adjourned after the talk at 9:30 and guests and members went to the Observatory to see the construction developments upstairs. Refreshments were graciously supplied by Ernie Webb and Ralph Smith and served in the lab area.
Respectfully submitted by
Lucy Albert, Secretary.
June 25, 2002
Minutes of the May 25, 2002 General Meeting.
When members arrived at the Observatory for the meeting, it was obvious that the meeting would be short and crowded. Everything that had been stored in the cold storage room had been moved into the classroom area on the previous Saturday to allow the contractor to reinforce beams and build additional supports under the Observatory floor. Lucy Albert expressed thanks to the several members who came last Saturday to facilitate the move. It was completed in less than 1/2 hour.
As a result, chairs and people got shoved into odd little places between telescopes and odd stuff. With a sense of humor, President Ralph Smith called the meeting to order at 7:40pm and Treasurer Doris Reese gave her report: $1,358.48. She will send $389.00 to Sky & Telescope for member subscription dues.
Steve Channel brought up the subject of the Farm Fair in July. He suggested that we prepare a "sales brochure" to hand out at the booth and all agreed this would be a very good idea. He offered to begin the process to produce it. Lucy Albert informed the group that she could supply a professional looking pop-up display to show off photos and information. With a small table and chair, we would have a nice booth. Volunteers will be needed to man the booth over the 3 days. We will be organizing the volunteer list over the next several weeks.
The observatory floor raising is progressing very nicely. The floor is high enough that an observer will look down into the eyepiece on the new telescope. At most, a small footstool may be needed to boost up small children. It is expected that the project will be complete by end of June. Lucy suggested that a "Grand Opening & Star-B-Que" party be held in the later part of the summer. Details will be forth coming.
Lucy also announced that she and Mark Kregel had looked at the dome and realized that some kind of safety flashing would have to be installed around the base of the dome to keep people from putting their hands up there, especially when the dome is rotated. This will be addressed after the floor project is finished.
Short announcements were made about the upcoming Mason/Dixon Star Party. Several members indicated their intention to go, but only if the weather predictions were good.
Elections for new officers of the Society were held. Ballots that had been received in the mail had been collected and were added to other ballots received at the meeting. A total of 13 ballots were received. It is possible that more ballots could be received in the mail, as the deadline in the newsletter was printed as May 31. This is not correct, and due to the fact that the by-laws required the election to be held at this meeting (always in May), the attending members decided to count the ballots that had been received.
The ballots were counted in confidence by Millie, Phil and Cathy. The results are as follows:
President Lucy Albert 12 votes
Warren Hoover 1
Vice President Tom Rusek 13
Secretary Steve Channel 13
Treasurer Carol Channel 13
Board of Directors:
Ernie Webb 12
Warren Hoover 11
Bill Geertsen 12
Wayne French 12
Grace Wyatt 10
Ralph Smith 10
Charles Jones 10
It was decided that Grace, Ralph and Ernie (who will be leaving us next year) will serve 1 year on the Board. Next year there will be 3 openings on the Board.
Warren, Bill, Wayne and Charles will serve 2 years.
The new president Lucy Albert expressed thanks to Ralph Smith for being an able leader through some trying times in the club over the past 1 1/2 years. She said a few words about getting the club excited again about having Observatory operational soon and seeing a resurgence in member participation.
A Discovery Channel video on the planets was then presented. Refreshments were served afterward and several member trooped upstairs again to enjoy the new changes in the Observatory.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15pm.
Respectfully submitted;
Lucy Albert
July 24, 2002
Minutes of the June 22, 2002 General Meeting.
President Lucy Albert called the meeting to order at 8:00 PM, at Harford Community College, Joppa Hall, J70.
Our brief delay from the usual starting time was necessary to ensure help arrived for one of our members, Warren Hoover, who had developed ill health. We all trust that he is feeling back to full form and our earnest wishes are that he remains in the best of spirits.
The minutes from the 25 May, 2002 meeting had been posted on the web site and delivered in the previous newsletter. Hearing no comments from the members attending, Lucy called for the Treasurer's Report.
Treasurer's Report: $1590.28.
All attending proffered a most sincere thanks to Doris Reese for her outstanding service of over a decade to the Harford County Astronomical Society. A general motion was carried to create a certificate testifying to that service. Lucy Albert and Steve Channel will follow up on that motion.
General Business:
General Discussion:
Burt Grollman informed us of an excellent article in the July/August 2002 Atlantic Monthly magazine. Entitled "A Space In Time" by Michael Benson, the article describes various methods used to capture and enhance astroimages.
President Lucy calls on all the membership for ideas on lectures or presentations for the general meetings. Several ideas were forwarded...good presentations make our meetings even better!
Cathy Tingler shared her enthusiasm for the Deep Sky map from Orion. Dew proof, and detailed, she advocates that it has been a critical tool for her observing sessions and it travels well!
Tom Rusek commented on the outstanding conditions we enjoyed at our most recent general public open house. When the nearby lights switched off at 10:30, Mark Kregel "nailed" M13 in his big dob to the delight of all!
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15PM.
Respectfully submitted...........Steve Channel
July 24, 2002
August 26, 2002
Minutes of the July 27, 2002 General Meeting.
President Lucy called the meeting to order at 7:30 P.M. She has established a regular agenda outline to follow that should keep the meetings as short as possible while still allowing us to cover all necessary business. The agenda is posted at the end of these minutes for your reference.
The minutes of the June meeting were approved.
Treasurer's report: $2078.12
At our most recent open house about 20 people and guests were able to view the skies through several member's scopes. Please remember to check the schedule and come out to support our monthly open house gatherings. Lucy updated us on several community outreach efforts, the most interesting being the recent Star Trek convention. It seems Lucy and her daughter were "trapped" in an elevator with some Klingon warriors...?
Observatory Update: Railing and painting is going on this next week. There may be a good possibility that the observatory will be operational by summer's end!
The time has arrived to move all the equipment back into the storage area. While doing this, we intend to sort all the instruments and gear so we can keep what is useful and be ready to possible have a "sale" on excess or extra equipment. We will be calling for members to help, perhaps one evening during the week to move things and help to sort. Once operational, we discussed the possibility of a "Public Grand Opening" event for the observatory as a way to advertise and market the club.
Instrument update: We need a small group of folks to take charge of our observatory equipment and help to service, clean and maintain it in good working order. If we have several useful scopes available at the observatory, perhaps we could use those for our public open house sessions. Bill Geertsen volunteered to check the status of our computer equipment and other radio telescope gear for our "Very Small Array". Please, any of you out there with the necessary skills, please contact one of the club officers to volunteer.
Astronomy Day 2003: Our club participation at the Harford County Farm Fair was discussed and an alternative suggested. Instead of the farm fair, which is expensive and perhaps not the best venue in which to showcase out club, Lucy suggested we explore holding an "Astronomy Day" at the Harford County mall. The cost for this is minimal, about $25, and we could time it to coincide with the national astronomy day held in the April to May timeframe. We'll investigate this as an option and report back to the membership.
In addition, we may have opportunity to participate during the Earth Day activities held at Swan Harbor.
Presentations: An excellent suggestion was made that we should perhaps hold a meeting at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore in combination with the Westminster Club. That club does so one meeting every year and it would be a great opportunity to visit the astronomy science exhibits as well as meet other amateur astronomers. President Lucy will contact that club to see about holding the combined meeting.
By the way, did you know that one of our members is actually in charge of the space science exhibits at the Science Center? He informed all that every clear Thursday night, the science center's large refractor is open to the public and it is surprising what one can see from Baltimore's "less than dark" skies!
The sky this month: Several members present pointed out the excellent solar activity presently underway. Take the opportunity to use your solar filters and check out our nearest star! Increased solar activity can translate into great aurora displays. Several websites are available to keep you up to date on the sun's condition:
Lucy closed the meeting by "beta testing" the Space Telescope's newest video presentation titled Hubble Reborn. This 10-minute documentary had outstanding video of the recent Hubble repair and upgrade mission.
Standard Agenda for the General Meetings:
August 27, 2002
October 28, 2002
January 20, 2003 and later
SPEAKERS for 2003:May 11, 2003
May 23, 2003
Member Junior Member Student Member Full Year---$21.00 Full Year---$13.00 $7.50 (Not prorated) After Sept.1---$16.75 After Sept. 1---$10.50 After Dec. 1---$12.25 After Dec. 1---$8.00 Family Plan After March 1---$8.00 After March 1 ---$5.50 $24.50 (Not prorated)
Yearly Membership Dues: Family $36 Individual $24 Associate $12
May 31, 2003
A recent announcement in PennySaver about an alleged public *Star Party* was well-intentioned, but WRONG. The announcement was not made by nor authorized by the Harford County Astronomical Society. Star parties at Broad Creek are "Member only" events. They are held there by permission of the property owners and are not open to the general public. Observing sessions for the general public are held every month at our "Open House" events at the observatory on the campus of Harford Community College. We regret any upset or inconvenience the false announcement has caused.
June 7, 2003
October 10, 2003
November 23, 2003
May 8, 2004
July 16, 2004
July 31, 2004
Here are the details:
7:15 - 7:30 Meet at designated car pool locations. (see below)
8:30 - 8:45 Arrive at the Science Center - Please use the Key Highway entrance,
and schedule your arrival no earlier than 8:30.
Meet Phil in the Back Lobby - Group Entrance.
8:45 General Meeting begins
After the General Meeting, the program will be turned over to Phil for the remainder of the evening.
Phil has asked that we observe the following:
Please don't block any of the employee cars that may be parked in the lot when you arrive.
Food and drink are not permitted in the Science Center.
Phil's program will be determined by the weather conditions but the show will go on, rain or "shine".
We may be out in the rain, so come prepared.
Car pool information:
We have set up two meeting places for those who may wish to car pool.
Site 1 - Harford Technical High School parking lot. This is the usual site for our Open House.
Site 2 - Festival at Bel Air - Meet in the parking lot in front of Sunny's Surplus
November 19, 2004
March 26, 2005
April 23, 2005
May 3, 2006
November 4, 2006
March 3, 2007
February 20, 2008
March 01, 2008
Remove from the Weather Page all uses of the word "clock" in references to Attilla Danko's seeing conditions graphics and information. Replace the word "clock" with "chart".
Danko was facing legal problems with the Skyclock Company.
May 24, 2008
July 18, 2008
The 2007-2008 was a landmark year for the Harford County Astronomical Society. We made several improvements to the observatory, reinvigorated the star parties, actively participated in a host of outreach programs and even had a one page article about the Society published in the Baltimore Sun. I would like to summarize some of the more significant changes that have occurred during this fiscal year. Observatory Operations Our observatory had been out of commission since I joined the Society in late 2004. Two major issues were dealt with during the summer of 2007 to bring the scope and observatory back in service. First, the dome was sticking and this was traced to a bracket that was binding with a rotating ring on the dome, catching in one spot and making dome rotation very difficult. This bracket was removed and the dome now rotates freely around 360 degrees. The second issue was the scope mount. Though it could still track, it would no longer GO TO. Diagnosis showed that the battery in the mount had died and this resulted in the database data evaporating. We replaced the battery, re-flashed the memory and, in the process, updated the chip in the mount to provide for updated tracking, got a new manual and added a protector to the hand controller. All at a cost of under $100.00! And while we were at it, we cleaned the scope, reattached the Telrad finder that had fallen off and fixed the illuminated cross hair attachment on the optical finder. Lastly, we now have a better cover, with fasteners, for the scope. We are now using the scope on a regular basis. Weather permitting; we use the scope for the open house functions and also after our monthly business meetings. Having a background in GOTO scopes (ETX and LXD mounts) I have taught myself how to use the scope and have started doing training for members who are interested. A project that we recently completed was to provide Internet access at the observatory. We have four hard wire access points in the classroom and two in the observatory at the mount. Further, we also have a wireless router so any one with a laptop can access the Internet from inside or near the building. The College has provided a desktop and a laptop and we are now working our way through using them to drive the mount, capture photos through the scope and display them in the classroom. Further, the College has also upgraded the classroom with a digital projector that is ceiling mounted and can project materials onto the classroom wall. We have cleaned up the place and gotten rid of the old refrigerator and junk in the mirror making room. HCAS Operations We have moved our monthly meetings from Saturdays to Thursdays and this has resulted in an increase in participation in our meetings. We are undertaking to again have presentations at the meetings and have had 6 sessions completed by club members during this last year and several more are planned for the next few meetings. Our open house functions continue on a schedule of every four weeks to match the lunar cycle. We hold these functions "rain or shine" and have an indoor program for those cloudy nights. We now hold the open house functions at the observatory, rather than the parking lot of the Technical School. We now have an electronic sign to advertise our sessions. We were accepted for membership to the Night Sky Network based on our outreach activities and references and have been provided with presentation materials. The Network provides us with additional materials as we use materials during program and outreach sessions. We continued to do our support of the HCCC astronomy classes up until this last semester, when the astronomy class was not offered. One of our members teaches a non-credit course and we did provide support for the class this year. We now have designated an ALCOR coordinator and have been touch with the Astronomical League. Members are now starting to receive the Reflector Magazine again. We continue to publish our newsletter on a monthly basis and it is a repository of our activities and business meeting transactions. In August of 2007, we were privileged to have had a very nice article printed in the Baltimore Sun, Harford County Section, about our Society. The Aegis had printed several photos of special evens we have had. Star Parties These have been started up again and we are now averaging more than two sessions per month. However, these are not set on moonless Saturdays or on any set schedule, as in the past. Instead, they occur as opportunities present themselves and can happen on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. We even had sessions during the week and during early mornings. These most frequently are written up and are published in our newsletter. Also, five of our members will be going to Cherry Spring Star Party in late May. Four members went last year and three the year before. Outreach Programs This remains an important part of what we do and we have a steady stream of requests coming through. With the observatory now back in business, we try to hold them at the observatory during the open house functions. However, we still do go out and show what we can do. We continue to support Earth Day and Swan Fest. We also did a library program and several presentations were done at local schools. We have had several scout groups attend our open house sessions. Special events were also held at Camp Sunrise, the Edgewood Senior Citizens Center, Harford Community College Fun Fest Day, the 2008 Lunar Eclipse and a campfire program at Susquehanna State Park. We signed up for the Astronomical League Awards program and 10 of our members received awards for their contributions over the last few years. Because of our open house and out reach programs, we are known in the community and have been the beneficiaries of two donations. One was a 10.1" Coulter Odyssey reflector and the other was an ETX-70 refractor with case and accessories.