Reports of Monthly Meetings on Zoom

By Donna Pursley

January 31, 2023

17 people in attendance

Treasurer’s Report
Expenses: VoIP, T-shirts, storage
Income: public events donation jar, memberships
Members = 95, New – Yiyang Min

Chris Predom is looking at the comet right now through binos and a telescope. He can see the motion within a few minutes in the eyepiece. Some people on the news had pictures of the Mars Occultation. Jim Mazur has seen the comet ZTF. Large coma, nucleus defined in the telescope; fuzzy spot in the binos. Rich Asarisi looked at the comet right before this meeting. Fuzzy dot. Greg Barker showed some maps of where the comet should be. Tonight it is the brightest. We had a discussion of how to find it. It is going away from the Sun.

There was a Christmas Eve conjunction that was seen at Gulf Beach in Milford. The Moon – Mercury – Venus.

Hammonasset Events:  March 25, May 27, August 11 (rain date 8/12), October 14. The Thames River astronomy group will be glad to help out. The dates for Silver Sands and Young’s Park have been sent in. No responses yet. April, May, June, October, November. The first few might not happen if not approved. New Haven Long Wharf is asking for dates.

Do we have access to the Foran High School planetarium? Greg hasn’t heard from Al Sacharow’s sons. We would like to invite some at the school to a Silver Sands event, or work through a teacher.

Laurie Averill wants to know if anyone is into radio astronomy. Bob Carruthers was. He had a larger dish that he used to hear Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun. He had a portable dish that he used for ham radio. Bob’s brother took care of his storage locker.

Al Washburn will be showing the meteorites to the 4^th and 5^th grades classes at Hill School with Andy Buynak’s wife Shelly.

Leo Taylor talked about the 15 foot wide Yagi antenna to record sounds.

Dave Johnson and Al Washburn remembered listening to the planets at 2am with Bob Carruthers and Andy Poniros.

The meeting ended at 19:45.

February 28, 2023

16 people in attendance

Treasurer’s  Report
Income: memberships
Expenses: storage, taxes
96 Members – New: Michael Saban, Terri Kurczewski

The Young’s Park dates are in the calendar. We are still waiting to hear from DEEP for Silver Sands. Greg Barker has sent an email to Foran High School about a planetarium show. We can make it into a star gazing event.

Al Washburn had the meteorites at Hill Central 5^th and 6^th graders. He did the meteorite drop with black pants. Not a good idea. He will be going to Ferrero School next.

Donna Pursley saw the comet in her backyard. Al Pinto saw the comet. Greg and Cheryl Barker saw it a few days later. Al Washburn said he tried to find it. Andy Buynak said he saw it next to Mars. Chris Predom saw it a few times. Rich Asarisi is sending a picture for the newsletter. Peter Adamo couldn’t find it but saw a few bands on Jupiter. Andy saw Venus and Jupiter very close together. Peter said that Betelgeuse dimmed unexpectantly. Chris did some observing of the Messier objects and sigma Orionis.

Donna went to the Bob Carruthers memorial on Zoom. Leo Taylor was there in person. The memorial was recorded by the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Laurie Averill is working on trying to get some NASA speakers for CSP.

We have upcoming public events at Young’s Park, Hammonasset and the Madison moon walk. The upcoming private events will be at Colchester, Massaro Farm, and Long Wharf. The events are on the front page of our website and can be downloaded.

Andy and Peter had questions about dew heaters. We discussed the different brands and how to power them. Everyone does it a little different. NEAF may sell some if you go there in April.

The meeting ended at 19:53.