Download minutes here.
StarGazers Meeting 2-13-12 Minutes
After our picture from last week, the 8000×8000 view of Earth, they’ve come out with one from the other side of the world, which is 11500×11500!! Check it out.
We actually have an itinerary 
Next Tuesday is our first open house! It should even be relatively warm weather 
Carpool at 5:50pm from MG/VH parking lot to learn how to use the new telescopes! Directions on the website, and remember the rain-out day is the next day
**CHALKING this Friday at 2pm, meet Ronnie at the couches in Stonehenge (3rd floor MG)
Mikey – good job on the fliers!
Andy is going to kick some butt if we don’t hear about the posters soon, they should be printed here in the next few days. If you’d like to help him put them up around campus, shoot him (or me) an email
MOVIES!!! We could watch them (~1hr) on the off Mondays (the ones not our meeting days), and do short clips at the ends of movies. Meet in MG1099 at 5:30pm to watch a movie about Saturn.
Our club Constitution – we need to revise our constitution. A.K.A. add a Risk-Management position. We can elect CEOOH Paul!
Club- Only Event – On Monday March 12th, we’ll have a quick meeting later in the evening about the open house that Thursday, then we’ll head out!
Andy’s email announcements – Taxes, Mardi Gras, CPR $10 certification
Science on Saturday – March 24th – elementary kids come to TSU and attend Truman student-led mini seminars. We’ve done an Astronomy session the past 3 semesters, so Ronnie will check if there’s an opening for us this semester. More details coming.
Ronnie’s SPACE MOMENT: Taurus – A bull with horns in the northern hemispheres winter sky right above Orion, you can use Orion’s belt to find him
Mythology – the animal form of lustful Zeus, who wanted Phoenician Princess Europa. He took her to the island of Crete, where she bore his son Minos
Astrology symbol April 20- May20 characteristics : patient and reliable, lots of common sense, persistent and determined, sudden flares of temper, possessive of the person they love
Cool things in Taurus – Aldebaran is the brightest star in constellation; Crab Nebula; 2 open star clusters, the Hyades and the Pleiades. There is a story that Taurus was placed between Orion and the Pleiades to protect the Seven Sisters from Orion’s advances.
Video – Habitable Exoplanets – Scientists use Radial Velocity (the Wobble method) to find exoplanets
Exoplanets are extra solar planets, planets outside our solar system
Wobble method – an orbiting planet will pull on its star, causing it to wobble as it rotates. We can detect this wiggle in the light we receive from it
Most planets found are the size of Jupiter
Big dog/small dog pulling on owner is like the Earth on sun – extremely hard to detect
Transit Method – a planet will eclipse across the star, and we can find the dip in the light curve as the planet transits between us and the star. Also really hard to detect, because the dip is usually <1% of the luminosity. We’ve only been able to find Jupiter-size gas giants close to the star, because they’re the ones we can see. If we focus on a red dwarf, there’s a larger dip in the light curve (but since they’re dimmer, its harder to collect data).
NASA launched the Kepler telescope, which continuously takes data on sections in Cygnus. There are hundreds of potential candidates, and 61 have been confirmed as exoplanets. Unfortunately, none of them are habitable, as we define Life. Imagine, if there are so many in just this one small section of the sky, how many more could be out there?
Neptune was the first planet discovered by non-direct observation, by the wobble method used on Uranus.
Next meeting Monday 2-27, at 5:30 pm in MG1099
Space Moment – Andy
SunScope : Thursday March 15th and Wednesday April 11th – put up a sign “It IS safe!”
Open Houses for this semester:
- Tuesday, Feb. 21st 7-9pm [RainOut day Wednesday, Feb. 22nd] Hot chocolate
- Thursday, March 15th 8-10pm [RainOut night Friday, March 16th] Hot chocolate
- Friday, March 30th 8-10pm [RainOut night Saturday, March 31st] Hot chocolate
- Wednesday, April 11th 8-10pm [RainOut night Thursday, April 12th]
- Monday, April 23rd 8-10pm [RainOut night Tuesday, April 24th]
**Remember, we need to set up starting half an hour before we open. If you need a ride, meet in the MG/VH parking lot 40min before we open, and we can carpool.
Note : Nominations for offices will be during our second-to-last meeting, March 26th .
Elections will be held 3 weeks later (due to Easter) on April 16th .