Next Meeting

When July 16, 2008 at 7:30pm. Come early at 7pm to visit with your fellow members. Bring your slides to show after the program. Questions? Contact the VP Programs Where Physics-Astronomy Building Room A102 University of Washington Seattle Map What A Beginner's Experience in Making Dobsonian Telescopes Jingchun Chen VP Programs, Seattle Astronomical Society For amateur astronomers to enjoy the celestial wonders, one of the most important things to own is a telescope. And if that telescope was self made, the time under the night sky could be even more enjoyable. The fun part (and those not so fun) of making a telescope from scratch goes beyond just astronomy, especially for a total beginner. At the general meeting of July 2008, Jingchun Chen, our VP Programs, will be sharing with us his experiences in making two Dobsonian telescopes in just 6 months, starting with glass blanks and materials from hardware stores. He will emphasize mistakes he made and lessons he learned, which may be useful to future telescope builders. Many thanks to our past speakers of 2008: David Dorais, Rubie Sanborn Johnson, Edward J. Mannery, Burley Packwood, Bob Suryan, and Chris Laurel. At the "Show and Tell" presentation of June 18, David showed a nice DVD movie on cosmic collisions; Rubie and Edward showed us the RubyScope, a 6" reflector kit built for kids; Burley gave us an account of his trip to Whipple Observatory in Arizona; Bob showed pictures of Kitt Peak Observatory which he first visited 32 years ago; and Chris did a demo of his amazing 3D visualization software Celestia. Prof. Victoria Meadows. On May 21, 2008, Prof. Victoria Meadows of Univ. of Washington talked about how we will search for and identify planets that might support life around other stars, and described results from the new science of astrobiology that will help us recognize signs of life on these distant worlds. Denis Janky. On April 16th, 2008, Denis Janky, a fellow SAS member, shared with the audience observing tips, favorite galaxies for telescopes large and small, and other resources. Dr. Chris Brook. On March 19th, 2008, Dr. Chris Brook of University of Washington spoke on the cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. Paul Rodman. On February 22nd, 2008, Paul Rodman gave a very entertaining and extremely informative talk on planning and logging astronomical observations, which also included a demonstration using the software AstroPlanner. Previous Speakers A list of speakers at previous meetings can be found here.