May 2006 Meeting
The 416th Meeting of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 5th May 2006 at 8pm
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley,
Tony Aremia, Philip Masding, Don Utton,
Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton,
Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck,
John Tipping, John Gartshore, Roger Livermore,
Stuart Oldbury, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick,
Peter Baugh, Richard Bullock.
(Total 20)
The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and apologising for being late. He then thanked everyone who had helped sort out for tonight’s new venue, announcing that tonight we would start with a talk by Phil Masding called spy satellites.
Phil started by saying, “Lets see what we can find in the public domain”.
First Is the International space station, “ been there, seen that, got the T-shirt”.
What else can you see? All the rest are very small in comparison, the next largest is the European satellite Envisat, however some of the others he has been trying to observe are the US Lacrosse satellites.
The orbits for these 5 satellites are not published by the US and the orbits are only known because of amateur observations. He told us that given just a few observations from around the world that it was quite easy to calculate a satellites orbit.
We were then given the known details on the satellites & their side looking radar systems.
Phil then detailed his own successful attempts to image some of them, and using software he wrote himself, to use those images to work out some of the satellites true dimensions.
Using his new diffraction grating he has now taken the spectrum of a different satellite, which may be an amateur first.
The secretary thanked Phil for his talk and the meeting had a tea break.
When the meeting resumed Mark Crossley gave us an update as to what has been happening with comet 73P and showed us some images of it taken by himself prior to it’s latest break up.
After thanking Mark the secretary started on club business :-
The society’s application to the Timperley village fair was being sent.
The society now has a copy of David Ratledge’s new book for it’s library, and the society has received £50 from the Forestry Commission for our March talk at Delamere.
Ged has received a quote for clearance of the obs site of £3000 and we are still waiting for a quote from the council themselves. It was suggested that we may hold a working party in June or July to do some of the work, fair warning was given “if it’s yours – take it out or it will be cleared”. It has also been confirmed that we do not need an asbestos survey.
Next were opinions on the new venue, the general consensus was good.
Chris Suddick told us the Adas website was up for renewal and he would do this for 2 years.
Paul Brierly suggested we might wish to join him on the 19th/20th May at Clough House, possibly our last chance to observe galaxies until after the summer.
Tony Aremia thanked everybody for his card and their kind thoughts.The meeting was then brought to a close.
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Mark Crossley,
Tony Aremia, Philip Masding, Don Utton,
Norman Thurstan, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton,
Graham Sinagola, Nick Dixon, Ged Birbeck,
John Tipping, John Gartshore, Roger Livermore,
Stuart Oldbury, Paul Brierly, Chris Suddick,
Peter Baugh, Richard Bullock.
(Total 20)
The chairman Paul Clark opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and apologising for being late. He then thanked everyone who had helped sort out for tonight’s new venue, announcing that tonight we would start with a talk by Phil Masding called spy satellites.
Phil started by saying, “Lets see what we can find in the public domain”.
First Is the International space station, “ been there, seen that, got the T-shirt”.
What else can you see? All the rest are very small in comparison, the next largest is the European satellite Envisat, however some of the others he has been trying to observe are the US Lacrosse satellites.
The orbits for these 5 satellites are not published by the US and the orbits are only known because of amateur observations. He told us that given just a few observations from around the world that it was quite easy to calculate a satellites orbit.
We were then given the known details on the satellites & their side looking radar systems.
Phil then detailed his own successful attempts to image some of them, and using software he wrote himself, to use those images to work out some of the satellites true dimensions.
Using his new diffraction grating he has now taken the spectrum of a different satellite, which may be an amateur first.
The secretary thanked Phil for his talk and the meeting had a tea break.
When the meeting resumed Mark Crossley gave us an update as to what has been happening with comet 73P and showed us some images of it taken by himself prior to it’s latest break up.
After thanking Mark the secretary started on club business :-
The society’s application to the Timperley village fair was being sent.
The society now has a copy of David Ratledge’s new book for it’s library, and the society has received £50 from the Forestry Commission for our March talk at Delamere.
Ged has received a quote for clearance of the obs site of £3000 and we are still waiting for a quote from the council themselves. It was suggested that we may hold a working party in June or July to do some of the work, fair warning was given “if it’s yours – take it out or it will be cleared”. It has also been confirmed that we do not need an asbestos survey.
Next were opinions on the new venue, the general consensus was good.
Chris Suddick told us the Adas website was up for renewal and he would do this for 2 years.
Paul Brierly suggested we might wish to join him on the 19th/20th May at Clough House, possibly our last chance to observe galaxies until after the summer.
Tony Aremia thanked everybody for his card and their kind thoughts.The meeting was then brought to a close.
posted by Kevin at 7:16 PM
<< Home