The 428th Meeting and 42nd AGM of the Altrincham and District Astronomical Society, held at Timperley Village Scout hut on Friday 7th September 2007 at 8pm
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Philip Masding,
Don Utton, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton,
Graham Sinagola, Ged Birbeck, Roger Livermore,
Peter Baugh, Mike Tyrell, Nick Odham,
Jonathan Odham, Tony Aremia, Nick Dixon,
Richard Bullock, Chris Suddick, Mark Crossley,
( total 18 )
Paul Clark welcomed everyone to the meeting and started with the news that he and Mark had dismantled the 14 inch obs scope and were hoping to sell the optics at the Kelling Heath star party the next weekend, unless anyone in the society was interested for approx £200.
The society had also had donated to it a four inch Vixen fluorite apo refractor, along with a Super Polaris mount and tripod.
Then we had a discussion concerning the future of the NWGAS and asked what does the society get out of it? Not very much it was decided apart from the speakers list. Suggestions were made that we they don’t really need to hold face to face meetings anymore and that it would probably be better for the less central societies to run it via an online forum or bulletin board. The secretary stated that he would be attending the next NWGAS meeting on 6th October to discuss its future.
It was then noted that our own website still needed properly updating (if only people can remember how).
We were then reminded that the Kelling Heath star party was the following weekend and Peak star party 2 was on in October, the same week as the Keilder star party.
Next was the election of officers.
Paul said he was standing down as chairman as his Fridays were currently very busy, he was thanked for his time in office.
There were however no nominations forthcoming for the position as yet.
Kevin and Richard stated that unless there were other candidates that they would continue as Secretary and treasurer respectively, both were unopposed.
Graham Sinagola was elected to the new post of refreshments co-ordinator ( tea boy).
There was more discussion on the position of Chairman and Peter Baugh said that he may be willing to arrange some of the meetings.
Paul Clark told us that he would be bringing in £30 for the Society’s funds after a presentation he was doing to the Phoenix Rising Astrology Group about an astronomers view on the planets and solar system.
He then showed us a stacked image of the square of Pegasus, explaining some of the techniques used and said that after the break we would see pictures from his trip to Tenerife.
The meeting then took a break.
When the meeting restarted the Treasurer explained the accounts and that last year there was a deficit of £1300, due mainly to the closing down of the observatory site. He was hoping that Paul would be able to sell the 14” optics the next week and it was decided that the subscriptions would not be going up this year.
Next Mark and Paul both showed us pictures of M27 they had each taken over the last couple of nights, Paul also had a picture of M57 from the same night including a faint galaxy.
Paul then told us about his trip to Tenerife for the Perseid meteor shower.
He took his new “Astro Track” tracking mount to use with his camera and explained to us how it worked. We then saw his pictures of the milky way stacked from several exposures with Registax then stitched together in Photoshop photo merge to create wider field views of the milky way.
Paul said that his main problem was that even set to manual the camera still tried to auto set the colour and white balance.
We then got to see some of the original pictures as taken by the camera, the same pictures after initial processing and finally approximately as would be seen by the human eye.
We then moved on to any other business.
It was decided to further discuss the vacant post of chairman at the next meeting.
The chairman raised the matter of society equipment and was updated on equipment whereabouts.
We had a quick précis of Paul’s talk to the astrology group
Finaly we were reminded about the Timperley country fair the next weekend and it was reiterated that we needed more tombola.
The meeting was then brought to a close.
Those present were:
Paul Clark, Kevin Thurstan, Philip Masding,
Don Utton, Colin Eaves, Geoffrey Walton,
Graham Sinagola, Ged Birbeck, Roger Livermore,
Peter Baugh, Mike Tyrell, Nick Odham,
Jonathan Odham, Tony Aremia, Nick Dixon,
Richard Bullock, Chris Suddick, Mark Crossley,
( total 18 )
Paul Clark welcomed everyone to the meeting and started with the news that he and Mark had dismantled the 14 inch obs scope and were hoping to sell the optics at the Kelling Heath star party the next weekend, unless anyone in the society was interested for approx £200.
The society had also had donated to it a four inch Vixen fluorite apo refractor, along with a Super Polaris mount and tripod.
Then we had a discussion concerning the future of the NWGAS and asked what does the society get out of it? Not very much it was decided apart from the speakers list. Suggestions were made that we they don’t really need to hold face to face meetings anymore and that it would probably be better for the less central societies to run it via an online forum or bulletin board. The secretary stated that he would be attending the next NWGAS meeting on 6th October to discuss its future.
It was then noted that our own website still needed properly updating (if only people can remember how).
We were then reminded that the Kelling Heath star party was the following weekend and Peak star party 2 was on in October, the same week as the Keilder star party.
Next was the election of officers.
Paul said he was standing down as chairman as his Fridays were currently very busy, he was thanked for his time in office.
There were however no nominations forthcoming for the position as yet.
Kevin and Richard stated that unless there were other candidates that they would continue as Secretary and treasurer respectively, both were unopposed.
Graham Sinagola was elected to the new post of refreshments co-ordinator ( tea boy).
There was more discussion on the position of Chairman and Peter Baugh said that he may be willing to arrange some of the meetings.
Paul Clark told us that he would be bringing in £30 for the Society’s funds after a presentation he was doing to the Phoenix Rising Astrology Group about an astronomers view on the planets and solar system.
He then showed us a stacked image of the square of Pegasus, explaining some of the techniques used and said that after the break we would see pictures from his trip to Tenerife.
The meeting then took a break.
When the meeting restarted the Treasurer explained the accounts and that last year there was a deficit of £1300, due mainly to the closing down of the observatory site. He was hoping that Paul would be able to sell the 14” optics the next week and it was decided that the subscriptions would not be going up this year.
Next Mark and Paul both showed us pictures of M27 they had each taken over the last couple of nights, Paul also had a picture of M57 from the same night including a faint galaxy.
Paul then told us about his trip to Tenerife for the Perseid meteor shower.
He took his new “Astro Track” tracking mount to use with his camera and explained to us how it worked. We then saw his pictures of the milky way stacked from several exposures with Registax then stitched together in Photoshop photo merge to create wider field views of the milky way.
Paul said that his main problem was that even set to manual the camera still tried to auto set the colour and white balance.
We then got to see some of the original pictures as taken by the camera, the same pictures after initial processing and finally approximately as would be seen by the human eye.
We then moved on to any other business.
It was decided to further discuss the vacant post of chairman at the next meeting.
The chairman raised the matter of society equipment and was updated on equipment whereabouts.
We had a quick précis of Paul’s talk to the astrology group
Finaly we were reminded about the Timperley country fair the next weekend and it was reiterated that we needed more tombola.
The meeting was then brought to a close.
posted by Kevin at 4:34 PM
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