Draft Minutes for Meeting on 4th June 2004

The 398th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Club on Friday 4th June , 2004 at 8pm

Those present were:

Paul Clark Don Utton Mark Crossley
Colin Eaves Norman Thurston Nick Dixon
Tony Aremia John Tipping Peter Baugh
Chris Suddick Stuart Oldbury Sean Oldbury Total (12)

The meeting was opened by the Chairman who announced that the talk would be given by Mark Crossley with the mysterious title “Why does the sky go dark at night and other unrelated questions”. Mark started by saying that he wanted audience participation and was expecting that they would be able to supply the answers. The answer to the title question was that the universe is only 13 billion years old, there are not an infinite number of stars, and those a long way away have redshifts which put them outside the visible spectrum. He then went on to pose other questions which involved exotica such as the Ponzo Effect, ocular physiology, upper atmosphere turbulence, and the electrophonic effect. The audience were mostly able to hint at the answers but were stumped by ‘there are red and blue stars, why no green ones?’. Its because we call them white. The chairman thanked Mark for an interesting and thought provoking talk, this was followed by a general round of applause.

After the break, Paul Clark used SkyMap to demonstrate the transit of Venus on 8^th June. He said that he and some other members would be joining our neighbours at Morley Green to observe the transit, and urged everyone to try and see it somewhere. Tony Aremia said that he planned to go down to the Observatory which has a good clear eastern horizon. Minutes of the previous meeting were taken as read and correspondence noted. This included renewal notices for the BAA subscription (£35) and the FAS (£35 +£35 for PLI insurance). After some discussion it was agreed that we would make the renewals. The chairman announced that Dave Timperley would be leaving the area and so we would need to find another Webmaster. There being no further business the Chairman closed the meeting.

Chairman Secretary