Upcoming ORION Events

Events

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Calendar
2/29 LAST QUARTER MOON. Quadrennial leap day
March 1-31, 2008
3/1 TAO public viewing night.
3/5 ORION meeting at 7 p.m.
3/7 New Moon at 17:14 UT. Start of lunation 1054.
3/10 Moon at perigee (closest to Earth) at 22h UT (366,298 km; 32.6').
3/14 First Quarter Moon at 10:46 UT. SMAS meeting.
3/15 TAO public viewing night.
3/18 KO meeting
3/21 Spring or vernal equinox at 5:48 UT. The time when the Sun reaches the point along the ecliptic where it crosses into the northern celestial hemisphere marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.
3/26 Moon at apogee (farthest from Earth) at 20h UT (distance 405,092 km; angular size 29.5').
3/29 Last Quarter Moon at 21:47 UT

UPCOMING EVENTS

Wednesday, 2 April, 2008 Meeting of ORION at the Oak Ridge Civic Center at 7:00 p.m. This is a public lecture and everyone is invited.

Title: A Star Tale

Speaker: John Mannone
Abstract:

This talk will survey the fundamentals of stellar dynamics, including a review of the classification of variable stars. Emphasis will be on pulsating and eruptive variables, including Mira’s very long stellar tail. New complexities on stellar death of average size stars are examined.

ORION has new websites: Look at

http://orionridge.home.att.net and http://web.utk.edu/%7Eshellnut/

In addition, ORION has an astronomy discussion list which you can sign up for at:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ORIONastronomy/join

Public nights at Tamke-Allan Observatory are March 1st and 15th.

For more information about TAO plus maps go to http://www.rscc.cc.tn.us/obs/

Congratulations to JOHN MANNONE!John is proud to announce that he has been selected to represent the great State of Tennessee (along with several others already ordained) as a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador (http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/ambassador/). He received the notification by snail mail December 24. His term begins in January 2008. As soon as they receive some legal documentation and photograph from John, they will make the official announcement. This includes their contacting his local media for public announcement--this is a big deal, they only choose one for each applying state each year. The letter that Dr. Ferrari sent him was very commendable. He is excited in serving NASA/JPL. This should be good publicity for BAS. In addition, they already know about his astronomy-related poetry. He has great hopes in getting some exposure, maybe even nationally on this. Go get 'em, John!

Congratulations to ORION. ORION has become a member of the NASA Night Sky Network. Thanks to John for his presentations at TAO using NSN materials, and for pointing us in this direction. Robert and I are coordinators of our network and once we get the materials, ORION members may borrow them. SMAS members are welcome to borrow them also.

There are new links on the "Interesting Sites" page. Check them out!

PAST ORION EVENTS WORTH REVIEWING

A speaker of distinction ,Ed Jones, with some pictures of the demonstrations.