Iowa County Astronomers

Meeting Summaries

I'll post brief meeting summaries on this page for each meeting as time permits.

Archived Comet Holmes information From Dec 2007:

Comet ALERT!

Comet 17P/Holmes, on its way back away from the sun has suddenly burst into a naked eye object. It is currently a fuzzy patch in the contellation of Perseus. With binoculars or telescopes it shows up as a very strange looking round diffuse object.

Comet Viewing Tips:

1. Get away from as many lights as you can. We're lucky here in Southwest Wisconsin to be away from major urban light polution, but it doesn't take much light to interfere with your night vision.
2. Be sure your eyes are dark adapted. Waiting 15 to 30 minutes after being away from all white lights will give you the best view.
3. Dress warmly! Star gazing involves remaining motionless. We recommend dressing as if the temperature is 20 degrees less than what it says on the thermometer.
4. Use a reclining lawn chair with binoculars. This will help you keep the binoculars more steady and will help you avoid a stiff neck from looking up at a sharp angle.

Read more news about it here

More detailed information and picture gallery at Spaceweather.com

Find the comet using this basic star chart

A more detailed finder chart created by Ron Scratch is here

Here are images from members Dave Oesper and John Wunderlin

November 9 2007

• December meeting- party?
• Asteroids... A tribute to George Takei - Ron (postponed)
• Latest on Comet Holmes - Dave, Greg, John
• Observing if clear at 8:45 at our Governor Dodge location

October 5 2007

• Peru Meteorite - Greg
• Empire Ranch Observatory open house schedule- 1st Friday of each month if clear. - John W
• Orion 10x5 x 70 binos & Asterisms - Ron
• Seeker Program (if time) - Greg
• Observing at the Empire Ranch Observatory. Click Here for directions

September 14 2007

• Our meet & greet time included ice cream cake celebrating our 1 year anniversary!
• Iowa Star Party Report (Dave, Greg)
• Spring Green Star Party Report (Dave, John H)
• Intro to www.tonightsky.com (Ron)
• Latest Cassini images from the moon Iapetus (pronounced eye-APP-eh-tuss) (John W)
• Nice clear, but cold night for observing. Not many campers ventured out this evening! Temps in the lower 40s and we had frost by the end of the night.

May 11 2007

Our May meeting was shared with members from Grace Lutheran church in Dodgeville and was held at their meeting room.

• John W and Steve shared current news items on the Huge Supernova explosion, and the New 'Earth like' planet discovered.
• John W, John H, Shannon and Greg shared information about the DZSP. We all agreed it was an enjoyable night. Only about a dozen people were in attendance, but there were some good views and good company.
• We briefly discussed the - International Sidewalk Astronomy Night May 19th. John W will be following up to coordinate this.
• Shannon showed his Meade cassegrain scope and excellent Astroscan scope, Bob showed his Barn Door Tracker and 60mm refractor which he called an 'antique', and John W showed 2 sets of binos and his 2 Dobsonian scopes, 4.5 and 10 inches.
• Dave O led a Comet Quiz with the grand prize winner getting a poster of comet Hyukatake.
• Bob gave away a Tasco telescope(!), a beginner kit and book as door prizes.
• Dave O showed a brief presentation of constellations
• John W handed out a list of possible objects to observe with descriptions.We then moved to our dark sky observing site in Governor Dodge state park armed with our freshly minted agreement with the park that allows us to stay after 11:00pm (thanks again to Steve F!).
• We had several scopes and binos set up for our guests. It was mostly clear with occasional clouds here and there, though it seemed like there was some low fog which was transmitting much more light from Dodgeville than we are used to.

• Newsletter

  Shannon has created our first club newsletter. You can download the May 11, 2007 edition here.

April 13 2007

• John shared the news event of the hexagon discovered at Saturns north pole. Scientists don't currently have any explanations for this.
• Greg shared information on V838 and shared information from the Wiki entry and passed out images showing its progression.
• Greg also showed images of solar flares from the Hinode satellite. We weren't able to view the movie on the QLF computer due to technical problems, but suggested members view it when they have time.
• Steve updated the group on our effort to observe at Governor Dodge past 11:00. He said the he and Rich Evans from the park are working on the paperwork needed to grant us access.
• John W shared 2 of his binoculars and Greg shared one of his and an image of his large bino case- he's keepin us in suspense for the grand unveiling of his dual-6 inch newtonian binos.
• We watched most of Newton's Dark Secrets about the life of Isaac Newton. Unfortunately we were only able to watch about 3/4 of the DVD due to it being scratched badly (it was a netflix disk).
• We had 16 members at this meeting.

Feb 12th/March 16 2007

• Greg mentioned that the Milwaukee Planetarium has a new show on black holes.
• Greg mentioned the possibility of a group trip for the March 15th show in Milwaukee.
• Another member noticed that it was the day before the Driftless Zone Star party.
• John H brought up the Star Splitters Wyalusing group and suggested a Spring trip there to hook up with that club.
• Dave O. described his role in the International Dark Sky association and encouraged members to join.
• Shannon raised the topic of Public Outreach- we all agreed this is something we want to pursue aggressively.
• John W. mentioned the Universe in the Park program for the Wisconsin State Park system and that he has permission to bring scopes to these events to assist the astronomers from the UW.

Jan 19th 2007

• We discussed a group planetarium trip. Planetariums in Milwaukee, Madison and Appleton were discussed. The Madison Planetarium will do a custom show for $50. Dave said the show he saw in the Milwaukee planetarium was more flash than substance, but it may have just been the show he saw. Greg suggested we contact them for a special program. John H said he thinks they may be too booked for that. We're planning on picking a target date for the trip at our next meeting.
• Greg talked about a news report of a meteor hitting a house in New Jersey.
• Ron shared an excellent slideshow of relative sizes of the planets, our sun and some really large stars based on information at this website.
• Bob showed us his Barn Door Tracker that he build that allows for long-exposure imaging using a regular camera- as long as the camera has a 'bulb' setting. He mentioned this would be a good way for kids to get into astronomy.
• Shannon showed us his Richfield 'bowling ball' scope. We were able to try it out after the meeting and were all impressed with the views that it offered. We were even able to hold it while observing. I was particularly impressed with the eyepiece it had, but I forget the name of it!
• John, Dave & Ron showed images of their observatory construction project. You can see the images at John's Picasa website
• We discussed the problem 'what to do when police ask what you're up to in the dark with binoculars'. Members who experienced this problem mentioned that the officers are usually very reasonable when you explain and Greg suggested you let them have a look through your equipment.
• We then adjourned to the VERY COLD backyard for some observing time. We had 2 smaller scopes and several sets of binoculars for some nice views of the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy before we froze.

December Meeting was our Party!

Nov 17th 2006

• Greg suggested we get together to view the Leonid Meteor Shower Saturday night. Dave said that the 'big show' being talked about in the news will probably not be visible for us, but we agreed it has been a while since we observed together anyway. So, weather permitting we'll get together 11/18 at 9:00 in Governor Dodge. Here's a map to our meeting spot.
• Dave suggested we consider getting the park rules changed. Currently, non-campers must leave the park by 11:00pm, but ice fisherman can stay as late as they want.
• John H. suggested we try to just work with the local park manager to get an exception for our club.
• Steve offered to contact the park managers to check into this.
• Dave described the Aurora Alert Network that he set up. He is donating the cost of the telephone service to the club. This will work as follows: If significant Aurora activity is currently visible in Dodgeville, Dave or John W. will contact the VoiceShot network and everyone on the list will immediately receive a telephone call at the number they specified with a recorded message saying Iowa County Astronomers Aurora Alert. You can specify the latest time you wish to be contacted.
• We discussed the December Party- Jeff Applegate volunteered to host the party at his house in Barneveld. Directions will be emailed to the email list. Please bring a dish to share and your family to enjoy.
• After some technical difficulties with our projection equipment, we moved the meeting to Dave O's house to watch A Brief History of Time, the documentary about Stephen Hawking's life and discoveries. A lively discussion followed.

Sep 15th 2006

Organizational Meeting and Brainstorming. Here is the unfiltered list of ideas/goals/what you want to get from the club:

• Help learning equipment/astro gadgets
• Help learning of available resources
• Help with maintaining existing equipment
• Meet other people with similar interest/social aspect
• Learn the night sky
  • Include all levels from beginner to advanced
• Outreach
  • Schools
  • Scouts
  • Dave mentioned that we may get more request for this than we want or can handle
  • We may want to limit the number of events if this becomes an issue.
• Where to observe for the club?
  • John's Office or where ever our meeting is
  • Star Parties
  • Dark Skies?
• When will we be meeting?
  • Jim Coatney (not sure about spelling, sorry) suggested we may not want to have meetings during prime observing time like new moon.
  • John Wunderlin said he was hoping to schedule meeting times specifically around the new moon
  • We discussed possibly having meeting times earlier so not to reduce oberving time.
  • It was also mentioned that we may want to occationally observe the moon or special events
• Contribute to 'real' science
  • Variable Star observing, Asteroid occultations, etc can help contribute to science.
  • Extrasolar Planet Hunting- Virtual Planet Search website: www.oklo.org
  • This would be strictly up to individuals- no pressure
• How complex do we want the group?
  • Several people voiced concerns about too much bureaucacy
  • If the group stays small this may not be an issue
  • May want to avoid bylaws, etc
  • Avoid too much overhead
  • Have fun/be social
• Special interest groups could be formed
  • for example:
  • telescope making
  • astrophotography
  • kids astronomy
  • sketching
  • galaxyphoto.com was mentioned as someone who led an astrophotography interest group
• Travel
  • Yerkes
  • Large Star Parties (Nebraska?)
  • Madison (events with other clubs)
  • NorthWest Star Fest
  • Iowa Star Party
• New location- if John's Office, need donations for chairs
• Book/DVD loan program

Last updated: 9/16/06 2:17pm