VOL 34 NO 3 MARCH 2005 PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Star Party at Orion Acres: Saturday, April 9th. Camping is fine if you wish to spend the night. All Star Parties are weather dependent, and subject to cancellation due to clouds or rain. For more information or for confirmation the event is a go in the event of questionable weather, call Victor Rogers at (423) 842-5595. See the BAS website for directions to Orion Acres or visit www.orionacres.org  

MEETING NOTICE:

The regular meeting of the BARNARD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY will be held Thursday March 10th at 7:30 PM at Jones Observatory on Brainerd Rd.

PROGRAM:

A video about recent developments in Astronomy is to be presented 

Officers

FEBRUARY MINUTES

The February meeting g of the Barnard Astronomical Society was held at Grote Hall on the UTC campus on February 10 at 7:00 PM. 

A short business meeting was held prior the evening's program. The upcoming Tennessee Star Party on March 11 -13 was briefly discussed. There will be a BAS star party at Orion Acres March 5 weather permitting. There was no treasurer's report. (The secretary carrying the report did not get there before the business meeting was over.) There report therefore appears here in the published minutes. The January balance was $617.86. The February balance at the time of the meeting is $683.76.

Program: 

Program Mr. Jerry Armstrong from the Atlanta Astronomical Society who is an expert on and a collector of meteorites presented a very interesting program. One of the most interesting and rare meteorites he brought with him was a carbonaceous meteorite. The materials forming this meteorite are in excess of 5 BILLION YEARS old. Some of the other specimens on display were tektites formed during the impact of large meteor. These are formed from molten rock and metal created by the energy of the impact. Some are blasted out of the atmosphere and fall back to earth forming a characteristic "heat shield" shape as they fall back through the atmosphere.

The meeting was adjourned following Mr. Armstrong's presentation at 9:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted

Gary Caldwell, Secretary

REMINDER

Your annual BAS dues of are now due on June 1, in accordance with the adopted amendment to the by-laws. They are as follows: REGULAR $15.00, REGULAR ASSOCIATE $7.00, JUNIOR $8.00, JUNIOR ASSOCIATE $5.00. Your Sky & Telescope or Astronomy subscription will continue to be handled as in the past. When you receive your subscription reminder card, submit it to:

David Witt
4503 Cove Lane
Chattanooga, TN 37415-2306

Along with the group subscription rate of $32.95 for Sky and Telescope, or $29.00 for Astronomy.

DEADLINE

All articles and other materials for publication in the next STAR are due no later than Wednesday, April 6th. The following media are acceptable: hard copy, disk (IBM), video tape (VHS), prints, or e-mail to bas@chattanooga.net or stramey@catt.com and attach a file or mail to:

Steve Ramey
109 Sioux Trail
Ringgold GA 30736

PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ALSO ACCEPTABLE.

Understatement of the Century!

DARMSTADT, Germany -- The first pictures revealing the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan, were shown from Europe's Huygens probe showing what look like drainage channels on the surface of what until today has been a planet totally hidden from view.

The first image, taken from an altitude of 16 kilometers, has a ground resolution of about 40 meters, said Martin Tomasko, principal investigator for Huygens' Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR). Tomasko said that Huygens research teams now have about 350 pictures to work with. In seeing this small article in a paste in of the BBC last month I marveled at how one of the greatest accomplishment of this new century is relegated to such seeming insignificance after a few days or weeks of television "news coverage".

It seems that sensationalism has become the only thing that carries weight enough for the front page these days. It is painful to me that "Live at Five" murders and such are placed far up front of science and accomplishment when it comes to the "News" space of our papers, radio and television media. One works a lifetime to do science like this and then it is buried by what seems to "Sell" on prime time. Prime time indeed, please my friends, forgive that I am "ON' this time about what people relish as Science, that it is the latest UFO mini series!

Good Seeing, --- I wish!

Notice of proposal to change the BAS Constitution.

David Witt has proposed that we move away from a June to June membership year, and simply make everyone's BAS membership be a rolling 12 months. This way, if you join and pay your dues on Jan 1st, 2005 your dues would next be due on Jan 1st, 2006. This is currently way it works in practice anyway, so it is already the de facto way we do things. The reason is because it is not practical to prorate a membership to June, when you get a check for a full year already filled out, usually in the mail. With the BAS database, the plan is to keep track of when each members membership expires.

A second proposed change to the BAS Constitution is to make the BAS membership dues changeable when the Astronomical League (AL) raises its membership fees. This was proposed by Tom Adkins. Currently the amount of the AL membership fee in the BAS dues is given explicitly in the BAS constitution, which requires us to amend the BAS constitution every time the AL increases its membership fees. Under the proposed revision the BAS constitution would only state the amount of the BAS dues which do not include the AL fees, so we could easily increase the total BAS dues when the AL raises its rates, to pass along the costs. Changing the amount of the BAS dues going to cover AL membership would now just require a majority vote at a meeting to pass. At some point in the future it is anticipated that BAS dues will need to be increased to cover the increased cost of AL membership, hence this change.

These proposed changes to the BAS constitution will appear in the February and March newsletters, and then will be voted on at the March BAS meeting.