AEA Astronomy Club
Newsletter November 2014
Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 7
General Calendar p.9
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 9
Observing p. 11
Useful Links p. 13
About the Club p. 13
Club News & Calendar.
Calendar
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 7
General Calendar p.9
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 9
Observing p. 11
Useful Links p. 13
About the Club p. 13
Club News & Calendar.
Calendar
Club Meeting Schedule:
20 Nov
|
Club Meeting
|
Helioseismology
Part 2
|
Dr.
Edward Rhodes, USC
|
A1/2105
|
18 Dec
|
Club Meeting
|
“Doing real science with club equipment... and you
can too!"
|
Jim
Edwards
|
A1/1735
|
AEA Astronomy Club meetings are on 3rd Thursdays at 11:45am. For all of 2014 except May & Nov., the meeting room is A1/1735.
News:
Nov. 20 mtg. -- Note
the room change for our Nov. 20 mtg. – we’ve been bumped to A1/2105. Dr. Rhodes of USC will be back by popular
demand to finish his presentation on helioseismology.
Dr. Sherrie Zacharius, left, and Dr. Wanda
Austin, cut the ribbon to officially open the Mt. Wilson Aerospace Facility for
Integrated Optical Tests. (Photo: Eric Hamburg)
Aerospace
has opened the new Mt. Wilson Aerospace Facility for Integrated Optical Tests
(MAFIOT) on the grounds of the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California.
The official ribbon-cutting ceremony took place Tuesday, Oct. 21.
MAFIOT is
designed to support a wide range of research in atmospheric laser propagation,
atmospheric scattering, lidar, and laser communication. MAFIOT complements and
greatly extends the capabilities of Aerospace’s original installation, the Mt.
Wilson Optical Communications and Atmospheric Measurement (MOCAM) facility.
MAFIOT
provides a flexible, low-cost solution for new technology assessment and
experimentation in laser/lidar and astronomical physics. The facility houses a
modular suite of instruments, including a series of cameras and their
associated optics, capable of capturing visible through long wavelengths, all
mounted on a 2-axis gimbal.
Together,
MAFIOT and MOCAM provide a unique capability for experiments related to
everything from laser communications to atmospheric and radiometric
measurement, and ultimately are aimed toward the development of better tools
and spaceflight systems. In addition, the site can host external experiments,
act as a new technology test bed for customers, and serve as a ground station
for various satellite experiments.
.jpg)
Dr. Renny Fields, of the
Electronics and Photonics Laboratory, views equipment at the new Mt. Wilson
Aerospace facility. (Photo: Eric Hamburg)
[The smaller scope
apparently will get less use after the commissioning of the larger, and we’re
looking into gaining access to it for the club.]
We’re still looking into scheduling another Mt.
Wilson 60-inch session maybe in the Fall (we’ll
see what our AEA budget allocation is). But
we must await the AEA budget allocation, as we’ve completely depleted our bank
account. Also, We’re
also checking on the possibility of using Aerospace’s new 0.8m telescope at Mt.
Wilson.
Oct. 23 Partial Solar
Eclipse at AGO
A
last-minute decision was made by Alan Olson & Mark Clayson to set up the
H-alpha scope in the AGO mall to observe the partial solar eclipse near
maximum. A large sunspot group, some
nice prominences and a filament were visible.
At least 2 or 3 dozen turned out to look, and here are some photos taken.
Club-Supported Star
Party at WLAC
On
Friday, Nov. 7 Mark Clayson & Nahum Melamed supported a star party for
students of West L.A. City College & the public on their campus. Nahum’s wife is on the faculty and arranged
for us to bring our 10-inch telescope & giant binoculars. It was a clear & warm evening, and a good
turnout of a few dozen people, including a group of students from Mexico. We looked at Uranus, Andromeda Galaxy, the
Moon, and various stars, clusters & nebulae. The GoTo feature of the 10-inch impressed
all, and it was spot-on locating objects & centering them in the field of
view. Several took photos with their
smart phones. Someone else had an
impressive virtual reality system with 3-D goggles & computer that allowed
you to explore the solar system, etc.
The event is held each semester – twice a year – and we offered to
support it in the future.
Astronomy
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(from
Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)
Video: Sunspot Group AR
2192 Crackles http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141022.html
Image Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Explanation: One of the
largest sunspot groups in recent years is now crossing the Sun. Labelled Active Region 2192, it has
already thrown a powerful solar flare and has the potential to produce more. The featured video shows a time lapse sequence of the Sun in visible and ultraviolet
light taken
yesterday and incorporating the previous 48 hours. AR 2192, rotating in from
the left, rivals Jupiter in size and is literally crackling with
magnetic energy. The active Sun has caused
some spectacular auroras in recent days, and energetic particles originating
from AR 2192 may help continue them over the next week.
Tomorrow, the Sun will appear unusual for even another reason: a partial solar eclipse will be visible before sunset from much of North America.Image Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA
Video: Sprite Lightning in
Slow Motion http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141013.html
Video Credit: H. H. C. Stenbaek-Nielsen (U. Alaska, Fairbanks), DARPA, NSF
Explanation: What causes
sprite lightning? Mysterious bursts of light in the sky that momentarily resemble gigantic jellyfish have been recorded for over 25 years, but their
root cause remains unknown. Some thunderstorms have them -- most don't.
Recently, however, high speed videos are
better detailing how sprites actually develop. The featured video is fast enough -- at about 10,000 frames per
second -- to time-resolve several sprite "bombs" dropping and
developing into the multi-pronged streamers that appear on still images.
Unfortunately, thevisual clues provided by these videos do not fully resolve the sprite origins
mystery. They do indicate to some
researchers, though, that sprites are more likely to occur when plasma irregularities exist in the upper atmosphere.Video Credit: H. H. C. Stenbaek-Nielsen (U. Alaska, Fairbanks), DARPA, NSF
Video: A Total Lunar
Eclipse Over Tajikistan http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap141005.html
Video Credit & Copyright: Jean-Luc Dauvergne (Ciel et Espace); Music: Valère Leroy & Sophie Huet (Space-Music)
Explanation: If the full
Moon suddenly faded, what would you see? The answer during the total lunar eclipse of 2011 June was recorded in a dramatic time lapse video from Tajikistan. During a total lunar eclipse, the Earth
moves between the Moon and the Sun, causing the moon to fade dramatically. The
Moon never gets completely dark, though, since the Earth's atmosphere refracts some light. As the above video begins, the scene may appear to be daytime and
sunlit, but actually it is a nighttime and lit by the glow of the full Moon. As
the moon becomes eclipsed and fades, the wind dies down and background stars
can be seen reflected in foreground lake. Most spectacularly, the sky surrounding the eclipsed moon suddenly appears to be full of stars and highlighted by the busy plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. The
sequence repeats with a closer view, and the final image shows the placement of
the eclipsed Moon near the Eagle, Swan, Trifid, and Lagoon nebulas. Nearly two hours after the eclipse
started, the moon emerged from the Earth's shadow and its bright full glare
again dominated the sky. The next total lunar eclipse will occur this Wednesday.Video Credit & Copyright: Jean-Luc Dauvergne (Ciel et Espace); Music: Valère Leroy & Sophie Huet (Space-Music)
Explanation: Raise your arms if you see an aurora. With those instructions, two nights went by with, well, clouds -- mostly. On the third night of returning to same peaks, though, the sky not only cleared up but lit up with a spectacular auroral display. Arms went high in the air, patience and experience paid off, and the amazing featured image was captured. The setting is a summit of the Austnesfjorden fjord close to the town of Svolvear on the Lofoten islands in northern Norway. The time was early March. Our Sun has been producing an abundance ofpicturesque aurora of late as it is near the time of its maximum surface activity in its 11-year magnetic cycle.
Explanation: A New Moon joined giant sunspot group AR 2192 to dim the bright solar disk during Thursday's much anticipated partial solar eclipse. Visible from much of North America, the Moon's broad silhouette is captured in this extreme telephoto snapshot near eclipse maximum from Santa Cruz, California. About the size of Jupiter, the remarkable AR 2192itself darkens a noticeable fraction of the Sun, near center and below the curved lunar limb. As the sunspot group slowly rotates across the Sun and out of view in the coming days its activity is difficult to forecast. But the timing of solar eclipses is easier to predict. The next will be a total solar eclipse on March 20, 2015.
Astronomy
News:
NASA's hubble surveys debris-strewn exoplanetary
construction yards
Published: Friday, November 7, 2014 - 04:47 in Astronomy
& Space
.jpg)
NASA/ESA/G. Schneider/U. Arizona
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have completed
the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris
disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions
between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as
young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.
"It's like looking back in time to see the kinds of destructive events
that once routinely happened in our solar system after the planets
formed," said survey leader Glenn Schneider of the University of Arizona's
Steward Observatory. The survey's results appeared in the Oct. 1, 2014, issue
of The Astronomical Journal.
Once thought to be simply
pancake-like structures, the unexpected diversity and complexity and varying
distribution of dust among these debris systems strongly suggest these disks
are gravitationally affected by unseen planets orbiting the star.
Alternatively, these effects could result from the stars' passing through
interstellar space.
The researchers discovered that
no two "disks" of material surrounding stars look the same. "We
find that the systems are not simply flat with uniform surfaces,"
Schneider said. "These are actually pretty complicated three-dimensional
debris systems, often with embedded smaller structures. Some of the
substructures could be signposts of unseen planets." The astronomers used
Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to study 10 previously discovered
circumstellar debris systems, plus comparatively, MP Mus, a mature
protoplanetary disk of age comparable to the youngest of the debris disks.
Irregularities observed in one
ring-like system in particular, around a star called HD 181327, resemble the
ejection of a huge spray of debris into the outer part of the system from the
recent collision of two bodies.
New study finds oceans arrived early to Earth
.jpg)
Illustration by Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have completed
the largest and most sensitive visible-light imaging survey of dusty debris
disks around other stars. These dusty disks, likely created by collisions
between leftover objects from planet formation, were imaged around stars as
young as 10 million years old and as mature as more than 1 billion years old.
"It's like looking back in time to see the kinds of destructive events
that once routinely happened in our solar system after the planets
formed," said survey leader Glenn Schneider of the University of Arizona's
Steward Observatory. The survey's results appeared in the Oct. 1, 2014, issue
of The Astronomical Journal.
Earth is known as the Blue Planet
because of its oceans, which cover more than 70 percent of the planet's surface
and are home to the world's greatest diversity of life. While water is
essential for life on the planet, the answers to two key questions have eluded
us: where did Earth's water come from and when? While some hypothesize that
water came late to Earth, well after the planet had formed, findings from a new
study led by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
significantly move back the clock for the first evidence of water on Earth and
in the inner solar system.
"The answer to one of the basic questions is that our oceans were always here. We didn't get them from a late process, as was previously thought," said Adam Sarafian, the lead author of the paper published Oct. 31, 2014, in the journalScience and a MIT/WHOI Joint Program student in the Geology and Geophysics Department.
"The answer to one of the basic questions is that our oceans were always here. We didn't get them from a late process, as was previously thought," said Adam Sarafian, the lead author of the paper published Oct. 31, 2014, in the journalScience and a MIT/WHOI Joint Program student in the Geology and Geophysics Department.
One school of thought was that planets originally formed dry, due to the high-energy, high-impact process of planet formation, and that the water came later from sources such as comets or "wet" asteroids, which are largely composed of ices and gases.
"With giant asteroids and
meteors colliding, there's a lot of destruction," said Horst Marschall, a
geologist at WHOI and coauthor of the paper. "Some people have argued that
any water molecules that were present as the planets were forming would have
evaporated or been blown off into space, and that surface water as it exists on
our planet today, must have come much, much later -- hundreds of millions of years
later."
The study's authors turned to
another potential source of Earth's water -- carbonaceous chondrites. The most
primitive known meteorites, carbonaceous chondrites, were formed in the same
swirl of dust, grit, ice and gasses that gave rise to the sun some 4.6 billion
years ago, well before the planets were formed.
"These primitive meteorites
resemble the bulk solar system composition," said WHOI geologist and
coauthor Sune Nielsen. "They have quite a lot of water in them, and have
been thought of before as candidates for the origin of Earth's water."
In order to determine the source
of water in planetary bodies, scientists measure the ratio between the two
stable isotopes of hydrogen: deuterium and hydrogen. Different regions of the
solar system are characterized by highly variable ratios of these isotopes. The
study's authors knew the ratio for carbonaceous chondrites and reasoned that if
they could compare that to an object that was known to crystallize while Earth
was actively accreting then they could gauge when water appeared on Earth.
To test this hypothesis, the
research team, which also includes Francis McCubbin from the Institute of
Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico and Brian Monteleone of WHOI,
utilized meteorite samples provided by NASA from the asteroid 4-Vesta. The
asteroid 4-Vesta, which formed in the same region of the solar system as Earth,
has a surface of basaltic rock -- frozen lava. These basaltic meteorites from
4-Vesta are known as eucrites and carry a unique signature of one of the oldest
hydrogen reservoirs in the solar system. Their age -- approximately 14 million
years after the solar system formed -- makes them ideal for determining the
source of water in the inner solar system at a time when Earth was in its main building
phase. The researchers analyzed five different samples at the Northeast
National Ion Microprobe Facility -- a state-of-the-art national facility housed
at WHOI that utilizes secondary ion mass spectrometers. This is the first time
hydrogen isotopes have been measured in eucrite meteorites.
The measurements show that
4-Vesta contains the same hydrogen isotopic composition as carbonaceous
chondrites, which is also that of Earth. That, combined with nitrogen isotope
data, points to carbonaceous chondrites as the most likely common source of
water.
"The study shows that
Earth's water most likely accreted at the same time as the rock. The planet
formed as a wet planet with water on the surface," Marschall said.
While the findings don't preclude
a late addition of water on Earth, it shows that it wasn't necessary since the
right amount and composition of water was present at a very early stage.
"An implication of that is
that life on our planet could have started to begin very early," added
Nielsen. "Knowing that water came early to the inner solar system also
means that the other inner planets could have been wet early and evolved life
before they became the harsh environments they are today."
Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Earth's water is older than the sun
.jpg)
This is an illustration of water in our Solar System through time from before the Sun's birth through the creation of the planets.
Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO
Carnegie Institution for Science President Matthew Scott
Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also
important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying
the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering
environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New
work from a team including Carnegie's Conel Alexander found that much of our
Solar System's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar
space. Their work is published in Science. Water is found throughout our
Solar System. Not just on Earth, but on icy comets and moons, and in the
shadowed basins of Mercury. Water has been found included in mineral samples
from meteorites, the Moon, and Mars.
Comets and asteroids in
particular, being primitive objects, provide a natural "time capsule"
of the conditions during the early days of our Solar System. Their ices can
tell scientists about the ice that encircled the Sun after its birth, the
origin of which was an unanswered question until now.
In its youth, the Sun was
surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, the so-called solar nebula, from which the
planets were born. But it was unclear to researchers whether the ice in this
disk originated from the Sun's own parental interstellar molecular cloud, from
which it was created, or whether this interstellar water had been destroyed and
was re-formed by the chemical reactions taking place in the solar nebula.
"Why this is important? If
water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from
interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the
prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all
protoplanetary disks around forming stars," Alexander explained. "But
if the early Solar System's water was largely the result of local chemical
processing during the Sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of
water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously
have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere."
In studying the history of our
Solar System's ices, the team -- led by L. Ilsedore Cleeves from the University
of Michigan -- focused on hydrogen and its heavier isotope deuterium. Isotopes
are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different
number of neutrons. The difference in masses between isotopes results in subtle
differences in their behavior during chemical reactions. As a result, the ratio
of hydrogen to deuterium in water molecules can tell scientists about the
conditions under which the molecules formed.
For example, interstellar
water-ice has a high ratio of deuterium to hydrogen because of the very low
temperatures at which it forms. Until now, it was unknown how much of this
deuterium enrichment was removed by chemical processing during the Sun's birth,
or how much deuterium-rich water-ice the newborn Solar System was capable of
producing on its own.
So the team created models that
simulated a protoplanetary disk in which all the deuterium from space ice has
already been eliminated by chemical processing, and the system has to start
over "from scratch" at producing ice with deuterium in it during a
million-year period. They did this in order to see if the system can reach the
ratios of deuterium to hydrogen that are found in meteorite samples, Earth's
ocean water, and "time capsule" comets. They found that it could not
do so, which told them that at least some of the water in our own Solar System
has an origin in interstellar space and pre-dates the birth of the Sun.
"Our findings show that a
significant fraction of our Solar System's water, the most-fundamental
ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which indicates that
abundant, organic-rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all young
planetary systems," Alexander said.
Source: Carnegie Institution
Source: Carnegie Institution
General
Calendar:
Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:
Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:
Colloquia: Carnegie (Tues.
4pm), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena (daily
12-4pm): http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/seminars/
7
Nov
|
Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw
Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: “The Unique Star b (not b) Persei,” Dr. Steven Morris, Harbor College
|
10 Nov.
|
LAAS
LAAS General Meeting.
|
Griffith
Observatory
Event Horizon Theater 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM |
Dec. 4 & 5 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2014
Lecture: NASA’s Dawn Mission to the
Asteroid Belt
The ambitious and exciting Dawn mission is one of NASA's most
remarkable ventures into the solar system. After more than seven years of
interplanetary spaceflight, the probe is just a few months away from the
mysterious world Ceres. The spacecraft has already completed a spectacular
exploration of Vesta. These were among the last uncharted worlds in the inner
solar system prior to Dawn. They are the two most massive residents of the main
asteroid belt, that vast collection of bodies between Mars and Jupiter. Ceres
is so large that it is included in the category of dwarf planets, along with
Pluto. The alien landscapes Dawn reveals provide humankind with a new
perspective on the solar system. Remnants from the time that planets were
formed, Ceres and Vesta hold clues that will help scientists understand the
dawn of the solar system. Dawn orbited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012
and returned astonishing views of this fascinating world. It is the only
spaceship ever to orbit an object in the asteroid belt and is the first ever
targeted to orbit any two extraterrestrial destinations. Such a mission would
be truly impossible without the use of ion propulsion, a technology that has
mostly been in the domain of science fiction. Dr. Marc Rayman will give a fascinating
and entertaining presentation on the Dawn mission and its two exotic
destinations as well as its use of ion propulsion. He also will share the
excitement and profundity of controlling a robotic ambassador from Earth in
deep space.
Speaker:
Dr. Marc Rayman, Dawn Project Mission Director
Dr. Marc Rayman, Dawn Project Mission Director
Locations:
|
Thursday, Dec 4, 2014, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA › Directions Friday, Dec 5, 2014, 7pm The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College 1570 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA › Directions |
|
Webcast:
|
We offer two
options to view the live streaming of our webcast on Thursday: › 1) Ustream with real-time web chat to take public questions. › 2) Flash Player with open captioning If you don't have Flash Player, you can download for free here. |
|
20 Nov
|
AEA Astronomy
Club Meeting
|
Helioseismology
Part 2
|
Dr.
Edward Rhodes, USC
|
A1/2105
|
Observing:
The
following data are from the 2014 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s
2014 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.
Current
sun & moon rise/set/phase data for L.A.:
http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/los-angeles
A weekly 5 minute video about what’s up in the night
sky: www.skyandtelescope.com/skyweek.
Sun,
Moon & Planets for November:
Moon: Nov 6 full, Nov 14
last quarter, Nov 22 new, Nov 29 1st quarter
Planets:
Mercury & Venus are visible in E dawn twilight. Jupiter
rises after midnight in east. Saturn and Mars are in the SW
evening sky, setting early evening.
Other
Events:
1 November Mercury at its Greatest Western Elongation
The Taurids are comprised of
two streams which cover a large span from September to November
with the peak being reached in
early November. Hourly rates are around 7/hour.
12 November Rosetta (Philae) Landing on Comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
17 November Leonids Meteor Shower Peak
The Leonids generally begin on
November 13 and end on November 21, with maximum generally
occurring during the night of
November 17/18. The Leonids are barely detectable on the beginning
and ending dates, but observers
are generally treated to displays of about 10 meteors per hour on
the night of maximum.
18 Nov
|
SBAS
Saturday Night In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle
School– 28915 North Bay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Greg
Benecke to confirm that the gate will be opened! http://www.sbastro.net/
|
22
Nov
|
LAAS Dark Sky Night : Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld
Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests only)
|
25 Nov
|
SBAS
out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke http://www.sbastro.net/.
|
Internet
Links:
Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying
Guides
Link(s) of the Month
A weekly 5 minute video about what’s up in the night
sky: www.skyandtelescope.com/skyweek.
Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying
Guides
General
About the
Club
Club Websites: Internal (Aerospace): https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club It is updated to reflect this newsletter, in addition to a listing of past club mtg. presentations, astronomy news, photos & events from prior newsletters, club equipment, membership & constitution. We have linked some presentation materials from past mtgs. Our club newsletters are also being posted to an external blog, “An Astronomical View” http://astronomicalview.blogspot.com/.
Club Websites: Internal (Aerospace): https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club It is updated to reflect this newsletter, in addition to a listing of past club mtg. presentations, astronomy news, photos & events from prior newsletters, club equipment, membership & constitution. We have linked some presentation materials from past mtgs. Our club newsletters are also being posted to an external blog, “An Astronomical View” http://astronomicalview.blogspot.com/.
Membership. For information, current dues & application, contact Alan Olson, or see the club website (or Aerolink folder) where a form is also available (go to the membership link/folder & look at the bottom). Benefits will include use of club telescope(s) & library/software, membership in The Astronomical League, discounts on Sky & Telescope magazine and Observer’s Handbook, field trips, great programs, having a say in club activities, acquisitions & elections, etc.
Committee Suggestions & Volunteers. Feel free to contact: Mark Clayson, President & Program Committee Chairman (& acting club VP), TBD Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).
Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President
