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PRESIDENT'S CORNER
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the arbitrary point of January 1 in its slightly
elliptical orbit, the Earth has completed about ¾ of its
annual circuit around our star, the Sun, and from our
perspective in the northern hemisphere on this tilted
planet on September 21st, the Sun moves below the
projected plane of Earth’s equator. Most of the children
of the inhabitants of North America are back in school,
harvests of crops are taking place, leaves on deciduous
trees are turning all sorts of colors and parents are
back at work pulling out the heavier clothes for cooler
temps. For those of us who watch the lights in the night
sky we get a few weeks of especially clear weather and
more stability in weather patterns, as the high thermal
heating of summer has dissipated and the exchange of
heat and cold between high latitudes and low latitudes
is more in balance. i.e. it’s “Fall!” At this time of
year DAS members are gearing up for a busy couple of
months before winter, and getting out to enjoy the
constellations of Fall, as well as still observing the
Milky Way summer objects, now in the western sky. We
anticipate better and earlier views of the giant planet
Jupiter and its everchanging atmosphere. As our kids get
back to school we look forward to sharing our love of
astronomy and our telescopes with more students and
their teachers. You may have heard our requests for your help by volunteering your time and talents, as Keith Pool is rebuilding our cadre for school and other astronomy outreach programs. I hope you’ll find some time in your busy schedules to share your enthusiasm and not keep all the photons from space for yourself or friends at the DAS Ed Kline Dark Site. To volunteer, contact Keith, or any board member. In the long run, bringing in a new generation (regardless of age) of amateur and professional astronomers is critical to your enjoyment of the night sky in so many ways. Coming up the weekend of October 16th is our Colorado Astronomy Day, which coincides with National Astronomy Day. We are planning a much bigger weekend-long series of activities in conjunction with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS), which will be inaugurating its new IMAX 3D theatre with the Hubble IMAX 3D movie and hosting a teacher conference on NASA’s missions to asteroids and comets. We have been asked to support both these significant events with speakers, volunteers and telescopes. Solar viewing from the DMNS patio is easy; finding faint asteroids or comets from heart of Denver will be difficult, but I know we have some talented members that would love this sort of challenge. Stay tuned for more details on Astronomy Day activities as Keith and I request that you join us as a volunteer with a telescope, a talk, to answer questions at our DAS table or at Chamberlin Observatory Open House south lawn. If you are into telescope building (or if you aren’t, you should be), the annual DAS Auction is also coming up. Many of us love building telescopes or their related accessories or just acquiring astronomy related stuff at bargain-basement prices. The auction is a great place to unload stuff you aren’t using or have outgrown, make a few bucks and save mega bucks for your next project. The auction proceeds go to the Van Nattan-Hansen scholarship fund, which we use to help jumpstart the next generation of astronomers and scientists. You can meet some of the “best and brightest” next generation if you join us at the September General Meeting, where we hope to present significant awards to this year’s Van Nattan-Hansen Scholarship winners! The Earth’s cycle of seasons goes on and so must our efforts at sharing our love of the sky, the stars, galaxies, nebulae and all the other ‘animals in the “zoo” of the universe.
Ron Pearson, DAS President
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