On Friday Sept 5, Don Spain, LAS  Lunar and Planetary Chairman,  will present a program titled, Ghost of the Moon.  It will cover the many remains of old craters that are barely visible and others that are a suggestion of a crater.   The meeting will start at 8PM in Strickler Hall room 102 at the University of Louisville Campus.  Strickler Hall is located behind the Rauch Planetarium.

You are invited to join the new official Louisville Astronomical Society Yahoo Group by clicking the link below to the LouisvilleAstroSociety. The LAS Board of Directors has voted to form this group in order to have society ownership. Moderators will be assigned to monitor the group after messages have been posted for enforcement of these simple rules: no offensive language, no personal attacks on other members, no links to inappropriate websites and any other rules that the Board may deem necessary to maintain decorum. Offenders will receive one warning and then exclusion from the group upon the second offense.

We look forward to your membership in this new forum.

The LAS Board of Directors

Click to join LouisvilleAstroSociety

The August meeting will be held at the Urban Astronomy Center at Tom Sawyer State Park.  The meeting will start at 8PM.  The program is Seeing the Night Sky by Karl Schmidt.   Learn how to be your own meteorologist and pick out those great nights for observing, learn some techniques of how to trian your eye to see those faint fuzzies and planetary details, and how to use the stars to rate your seeing as well as transparency of the night sky.  Please bring your telescope and if the sky is clear we will observe after the meeting.  Clear Skies! 

Due to the Patoka Lake Star Party and the number of people who will be camping there Friday night August 1, the LAS General Meeting for August will be held at the Urban Astronomy Center on Friday, August 8 at 7:30 PM followed by public night and the Legends in the Sky lecture by Anthony Minstein.. Board meeting will be in the classroom at 6:00 PM.

Bring your scopes for public night. We are expecting a big crowd. Our program at the meeting will be Seeing in the Dark by Karl Schmidt.

To my dismay, I have learned of the death of our oldest club member, John Martin. I spoke to his son, Mike, today and he said his dad passed away June 11 at age 89.

John was an great artist. He joined us at Shoney’s one night and drew an excellent picture as he sat there. We have a piece of art that John painted and gave to us. I am going to get it framed and a plaque will be put on it dedicating it to his memory. It will hang at the UAC.

We all enjoyed his sense of humor. In one exchange, we were talking about Sir Isaac Newton. John told us that he knew him. Funny!

We will miss our friend. I have invited his son to our next meeting so that we can teach him how to use his dad’s scope.

Here is the obituary:

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This is just a reminder for anyone wandering when the next general meeting is.  There will not be a general meeting for the month of July.

WordPress is the blogging software used for this web site.  Amy, our industrious Editor, requested that I upgrade to the latest version to get some new features she needs.  I did the upgrade this morning and everything appears to be working correctly.  Leave a comment here if you find that anything is broken.

The General Meeting of the Louisville Astronomical Society will be held at the Gheens Science Hall & Rauch Planetarium.  The meeting will start at 6:30PM.  The program for the evening is titled, The Planets.

LAS-

Friday and Saturday night saw the first official use of the new multi-purpose building at Curby as we welcomed guests from the River of Stars weekend co-sponsored by the LAS and the Leavenworth Inn. While still a bit rough around the edges due to unfinished painting and bothersome weeds growing up through the gravel, the building performed magnificently and proved to be much better than the trailer.

Mike Sellers reported that the eight guests Friday night were impressed as he presented a modified version of Telescopes 101 to them using Bo’s projector and Mike’s lap top which projected the images up on the 7′ X 7′ screen hanging center stage on the east wall. Posters adorned the walls and each restroom was clean and well-equipped with all the modern conveniences like toilet paper.

Although the skies never cleared, Mike, Bill Sellers, Sue and Larry Loucka and John Bowles took the would-be sky gazers down to the observatory and opened the roof to show them the 16″ reflector and the 10″ Meade.

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The April 5 Members Night at Curby will be preceded by painting and final touches work detail on the new building at 2:00 PM.