September 2011
President's Message: September 2011
By Tom ThibaultDear Skyscrapers Members,
September is upon us and hopefully all have been enjoying the warm summer. Well I’m sure everyone was pleased to see our weather this summer had improved from the constant snow, rain, and cloud cover we had to endure this past winter and spring. Our summer turned out pretty well with a good number of hot days and clear skies.
Skyscrapers have had busy summer as well. Our July Cookout was a great success and we couldn’t have had a finer day. On July 30th, we joined Professor Donald Lubowich of Hofstra University in sharing the wonders of the universe with hundreds of people at the Newport Folk Festival. Prof. Lubowich has been displaying his Music and Astronomy Program music festivals for a number of years throughout the country. Prof. Lubowich contacted Skyscrapers earlier this year requesting our assistance. Skyscrapers members Bob Forgiel, Bob Horton and wife Betty, Dave Huestis, Jim Crawford, Gerry Dyck, and our youngest member Alex Bergmann answered the call. What a fantastic day we had, we had a number of scopes set up for solar viewing. The cloud free skies and the abundance of solar activity provided hundreds of people with magnificent views of sunspots and solar prominences. I’m sure the number of members participating would have been greater if not for the fact Stellafane was also occurring that weekend.
As has been the tradition for many years, Skyscrapers had a contingent of members attending Stellafane this year. In fact, the Hartness House workshop was organized by our very own John Briggs and Dan Lorraine. My hope is that our Newsletter will include an article of both events in the very near future.
Our August meeting featured a presentation by yours truly on the “Merits of Maintaining an Observing Log” followed, by Craig Cortis with an example of his log of objects viewed during his last trip to Florida. Gerry Dyck also shared with us a number of volumes of his personal log books. I would urge all to consider maintaining their own logs. What a wonderful way to record your experiences and look back on them in the future.
Our business meeting followed and I was able to announce on behalf of 1st VP. John Briggs, that our September speaker will be Alan Sliski. Our 2nd VP Kathy Siok updated the group on our fast approaching AstroAssembly. I would urge all members to attend, registration forms are on our web site at the following link, http://www.theskyscrapers.org/astroassembly/ and will be available at our meetings. Kathy is putting the final touches on the event and is searching for volunteers to assist with a number of items. A sign-up sheet will be available at our September Meeting, but feel free to contact Kathy if you would like to help out this year. She has also received a number of donation items for the raffle, if anyone would like to donate an item for the raffle, let Kathy know, it would be greatly appreciated.
Steve Siok, on behalf of our Trustees, proposed a program, or let’s say a challenge, to our entire membership. It would be the Uranus-Neptune Challenge, Steve would like for all our members to visit Seagrave on a Public Night over the next few months and view these planets though one of our scopes. We will have a log available and challenge the entire membership to come up and add their names and comments to the log.
Linda Bergemann announced the results of our Special Election for Trustee with John Leonelli being elected to the open position. First let me thank Tom Barbish for his years of service as a Skyscrapers Trustee from the entire membership. Secondly, let me congratulate John Leonelli and welcome him to his position as Trustee. We ended the evening with Dave Huestis our historian sharing some newly discovered photo’s of Frank E. Seagrave, as well as some of Frank’s original observation logs. Great stuff Dave.
My final note is a reminder to all: 2011/2012 membership dues were payable beginning in April. If you haven’t remitted your dues please do so at your earliest convenience to continue your support of Skyscrapers. Dues can be mailed to Skyscrapers Inc., 47 Peeptoad Road, North Scituate, RI. 02857, Attn: Jim Crawford, or feel free to see Jim personally during any of our functions he is in attendance.
Clear Skies Tom Thibault Skyscrapers President
A Work in Progress: Restoring a 1916 Warner and Swasey Telescope
Alan SliskiAlan will talk about the men, Worcester Warner and Ambrose Swasey, their training and the early history of their company. He will show some of their astronomy related works, then get into the history of the telescope he's presently restoring. Alan will also explain their revolutionary design of the controls for the equatorial mount. Alan's talk will include pictures of the restoration in various stages of progress, and finally the design of a new lens and cell for the telescope.
Alan Sliski has been interested in mechanics and electronics from a young age. He built his first tube amplifier in 6th grade. Astronomy has always been a passion as well, traveling to Prince Edward Island in 1972 and Kenya in 1973 to photograph solar eclipses. Alan received a BS in Physics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1978. He has 28 patents issued, and for the last 20 years has designed medical equipment for treating cancer with radiation. More recently, he has been getting more involved with astronomy at home, with 2 sons interested in astronomy. He has a reasonable collection of modern telescopes from 80mm to a C14. He is also a member of the Antique Telescope Society and also hosts informal meetings of local antique telescope collectors. He has several classic telescopes, in whole or in parts. The most recent project involves the restoration of a 9.5 inch Warner and Swasey mount built in 1916. He maintains a complete machine shop and lab at his home for projects such as this.
The Variable Star Observations of Frank E. Seagrave
Gerry DyckGerry Dyck, Skyscraper member and AAVSO observer since 1978, will present a summary of the contribution which our Namesake Frank E. Seagrave made to the AAVSO International Database. His talk will also mention the variable star observations of Skyscrapers founder, Prof. Charles Smiley.
Setting Circles Made Easy - The Lost Art
Tony CostanzoAstrometry – and why I need a 1 meter telescope.
Pete Peterson
A Supernova, Uranus & Neptune under a near-Full Moon
The Ships of Sheliak
: By Jim HendricksonM56: Globular Cluster in Lyra
: By Glenn Chaple
