Astronomy Cafe – April 22, 2024

Video transcript of meeting

• General Assembly – Lauri Roche
  • Invitations sent out by email to all RASC members
  • $15 for two days of online activities
  • Speaker on Saturday night
  • Gather Town – meet and greet
  • Sunday Night Astronomy Show – from New Brunswick
• Voyager 1 & 2 – Garry Sedun, Chris Gainor
  • Voyager 1 now communicating again, once a fix was installed
  • Launched in 1977
  • Now in heliopause – outside influence of the Sun
• Regional Science Fair – Lauri Roche (roche.lauri@gmail.com)
• Astrophotography – Dave Payne
  • Triangulum Galaxy – by John McDonald
  • NGC 2403 – about the same size bur further away
  • Markarian’s Chain of galaxies in Virgo
    • 18 hours of exposure
    • Tried 50 hours of exposure to find more Ha data
• David Lee (david@victoria.rasc.ca)
  • Beginners’ SIG – moved to 14th
• Recurrent T Coronae Borealis
  • 80 year period, should increase in brightness from Mag 10 to 2 by September
  • Photometry and local observing group is being planned – contact David Lee (david@victoria.rasc.ca)
  • NASA Blog T Coronae Borealis
  • Recurrent Nova T CrB AAVSO Webinar
• John McDonald
  • Some good books by Carlo Rovelli, cosmological physicist
    • Seven Lessons on physics
    • White Holes – time reversed version to Black Holes
    • Books available in local bookshops,online and audio versions
  • 2024 Total Solar Eclipse – Composite photo of a series from partial to Totality
• Uplands street lighting – update from Dave Robinson
  • Met with involved parties in Oak Bay
  • Will meet further with mayor and engineer to try to head off the poor choices to try to get responsible night lighting when heritage street lights are replaced
• Garry Sedun
  • Lava Lake on Io, moon of Jupiter
  • Recent Solar Eclipse caused time shifts for satellites
• Chris Gainor
  • Alan Dyer’s Chasing the Cross-continental Eclipse
    • Texas to Ontario to Quebec to successfully photograph the eclipse
  • Being President – odd emails
    • Where is George Ball’s observatory?
    • RASA 14″ telescope – owners want to install it at our site on Observatory Hill
• Inflatable planetarium available – contact Lauri Roche (roche.lauri@gmail.com)
• International Astronomy Day in Victoria – Lauri Roche
  • Posters and other graphics to share event with others
  • Contact Lauri or Randy (pastpres@victoria.rasc.ca) to volunteer
• Astrophotography SIG – this Wednesday – Dave Payne