July General Meeting Minutes
July 12th, 2001
Attendance: 21, 5 of whom may or may not have been visitors
Meeting MC'd by: Jeff Bryant, Vice President

- New Astronomy calendars came in and are for sale

- Lots of T shirts left to sell

- There was a good turnout at the public Mars viewing sessions

- We got good press for the viewing sessions

- There is currently a dust storm on Mars

- Dave Leake said that Sept. 6th will probably be a preview of a light
  pollution show/demonstration, with both the Champaign and Urbana city
  governments being invited, plus the media. Some club turnout is desired. We
  might possibly follow up the show with mailings. The theme for the meeting
  is Save Energy--Save Light.

- Wayne James told a light pollution anecdote.

- Mike Rosenberger, observatory director, said "Please be gentle with the
  dome." The pulley was just repaired. We also discussed some possible things
  to do to make the dome less fragile.

- Next public skywatch will be July 28th.

- Would any member like to help with the Astro Weekend Wizards at the Orpheum
  Children's Science Museum? A list of stations will be in the August
  newsletter.

- There may be a talk with Hubble slides and photographs Monday September 17th
  at Staerkel. We discussed sponsoring it to a maximum of $50. A vote was held
  and all responses were "ayes." I couldn't tell if there were any abstentions.

- Dave Leake gave the Astro 101 talk this month. He described the magnitude
  system of classifying objects by brightness.

- Dave then showed and demonstrated his homebuilt binocular mount, which is
  impressive in that it can be moved up and down without changing what it's
  aimed at.

- Dave then showed a laserdisc of recent Nasa Mars missions.

- Jeff Bryant finished the meeting with a few animations of the Martian
  landscape that were done in Vista Pro, a software program, and then one
  of some Alaska landscape.

- At this point I left, due to illness, so my minute-taking ended for the night.

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Philip J. Wall                               "Anemia job!" said the
fleep@shout.net                                 unemployed vampire.