This Month we meet at the “Party Palace” located at 8616 N Lehman Road, just north of Bigelow Gulch Road. This location has plenty of space both indoors and outdoors, skies permitting, bring a scope to set up! Our feeding-before-the-meeting BBQ and potluck will begin 6:30pm. Side dishes, deserts, and cold drinks are a welcome addition from those who would like to contribute to the feast. The September 12th general meeting will begin at 7:30pm. This month’s presentation will be by Dr. David Syphers of Eastern Washington University on the topic of the Hubble Tension, a discrepancy in the value of the Hubble Constant, which has arisen between different methods of measuring this most fundamental parameter of cosmology. Hope to see you all at the Party Palace for a great lecture!
Author Archives: Matt Wallin
July Meeting
This month a family wedding will conflict with our use of the Party Palace venue. The obvious solution in July is to meet outdoors! To catch a more favorable last quarter Moon phase, our general meeting will move to the third Friday, July 18th. We will be having a club star party at our dark sky observing site, Fishtrap Lake. Just a quick 30 mile jaunt West down I-90, Fishtrap has great open horizons, and and is dark, especially to the South. https://www.spokaneastronomical.org/events-2/star-parties/ follow the link for a nice printable map and other information. The feeding-before-the-meeting potluck will go rural this month, with grillmaster John Riegel grilling burgers and hotdogs. Potluck will begin at the usual time, 6:30 PM. Bring side dishes, desserts and drinks to share. If you have never attended a star party, take a moment to read the space.com tips at the top of the page linked above to come prepared. With a little cooperation from Mother Nature, stunning views and fantastic imaging opportunities will abound, hope you will join us!
April General Meeting
This Month we meet at our warm weather location, the “Party Palace” located at 8616 N Lehman Road, just north of Bigelow Gulch Road. We will be meeting slightly later than our winter time, the meeting is now at 7:30pm. This location has plenty of space both indoors and outdoors, skies permitting, bring a scope to set up! Food and drink are permitted ( and encouraged!) at this venue. There will be pizza provided, arriving at 6:30pm, any potluck side dishes, deserts, drinks to share would be more than welcome! We will be having a telescope workshop for those who need help learning to set up and use their telescope, help with optical collimation and other adjustments, as well as advise on proper cleaning of optics and other repairs. This event will also be a swap meet for the general membership and an auction of astronomical equipment on the behalf of the family of the late Steve Krause, a long time and very active member whom we unexpectedly lost this winter. Hope to see you there!
February Meeting
We will meet on Friday February 14th, 7:00pm at our winter venue, Spokane County Fire District 9 firehouse, located at 3801 E Farwell Rd in Mead. This month we will hold nominations and elections for club officers and board members. This an opportunity for the membership to get involved with determining how this club functions. Your new ideas on leadership, vision and energy would be a boon to the functioning of this club! Current club Secretary and Astronomical League representative, Ed Gill, will share some information and observing program booklets that accompany the AL observing programs. Outgoing club President Matt Wallin will give a presentation on Spring Galaxy observing, outlining why this time of the year is so favorable for peering outside our own galaxy, with suggestions for impressive sights for optics of all sizes.
January Meeting
We will meet on January 10th, 7:00pm at our winter venue, Spokane County Fire District 9 firehouse, located at 3801 E Farwell Rd in Mead. This month we are fortunate to have NASA’s Kayla LaFrance here, in person, to give a presentation about the James Webb Space Telescope. Many longtime members fondly remember Kayla from her youth as an active member of SAS, I hope you will join us as we reconnect to hear Kayla’s insider perspective on the amazing science mission of the JWST.
December Meeting
This month we will again meet at our new winter venue, Spokane County Fire District 9 firehouse, located at 3801 E Farwell Rd in Mead, at 7:00pm. Matt Wallin will be giving a presentation on the rocket engines used in the US manned space program. There will be a bit of history, some physics pertinent to rocket engines, and an overview of the technical engineering, tracing its development from the Mercury Redstone rocket to the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner. Hope to see you there!
November Meeting
This month’s general meeting will be held at our new winter venue, the Spokane County Fire District 9 firehouse, located at 3801 E Farwell Rd in Mead. After extensive inquiries by our board, we found many venues to be unaffordable. District 9 is accommodating us gratis, many thanks to District 9, and to SAS Secretary, Ed Gill, for doing much of the legwork and setting up these arrangements. We can expect ample space with a parking situation that will be well plowed this winter. Food and drink, with the exception of water, are prohibited by this venue, however, all who are interested, there are plans for a post-meeting meetup at the Hop Mountain Taproom & Grill, located a couple miles north at 14017 N Newport Hwy. This month’s topic is a bit of a rerun, but hopefully the many new members and those unable to attend the original February presentation at our previous winter venue, Sacred Heart, will find my presentation on “Telescopes, Eyepieces, and Optics” to contain some useful information about choosing equipment and getting the best performance from it.
October Meeting
This month’s General Meeting on October 11th, will be social event, a Star Party, at the “Party Palace” located at 8616 N Lehman Road, just north of Bigelow Gulch Road. The Potluck dinner will begin at the usual time 6:30pm, our burgermaster is unfortunately unable to attend this month, the main course will be Pizza for this meeting, please bring sides and deserts! With a cooperative sky, there is a potential for Aurora viewing and photography. For members who would like help and guidance with their telescope, this meeting will be a great opportunity to receive advice from experienced astronomers. The club projector will be set up inside, any imagers who would like to share their work with fellow club members in an informal setting are welcome to commandeer the projector. This will be the final meeting at this location for this year. The club continues the search for its winter venue, several members have investigated options and made suggestions, many thanks for those efforts. Hope to see you at the Party Palace for some food, conversation, and some group observing.
July Meeting
We will be meeting this month on our usual day, the second Friday, July 12th, at the Party Palace/Bigelow Gulch location, general meeting to start at 7:30pm. The program for this meeting will be a virtual presentation by Greg Jones, a Rose City Astronomer, instrument maker, and collaborator on the FlexSpec project team. FlexSpec1 is a high performance spectrograph for the analysis of astronomical spectra and the team has decided not to commercialize their efforts, instead releasing the design as an open source project, with CAD files, 3D printing .STL files, great documentation, and more, freely available. The FlexSpec1 is exciting in that it brings high performance spectrography within reach of much broader user base of potential investigators by extensive use of 3D printed structural elements, and use of primarily off-the-shelf optics and electronics. The potential for FlexSpec to dramatically increase the possibilities for citizen science and Pro/Am (professional/amateur) collaboration are enormous! Myself and the SAS board are excited to help spread the word about this capable and accessible instrument.
Thank you to all who brought potluck items to share at the June meeting, it’s these little acts of participation and engagement that can help build our astro community into something special. Hope you can join us for the pre-meeting BBQ and Potluck July 12th at 6:30pm.
June Meeting
Due to a unforeseen scheduling conflict, our Bigelow Gulch meeting location is unavailable for the second Friday in June. We will be meeting at the same location on the third Friday, June 21, please mark your calendars! This month’s meeting topic will be a presentation by the club President, Matt Wallin on the topic low light human vision and visual astronomy. The presentation will give an overview of the physiology of human vision, then transition to a review and discussion of the book “Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky” by Roger N. Clark. Clark distilled the extensive science that was done in the pre-war and WWII era to understand low light human vision and it’s capabilities. Clark then adapted that data to an astronomy context and had many scientifically based recommendations for visual astronomers. Clark’s insights can give a scientific method to analyze what observations may be within the potential of your equipment, and recommendations to see the most possible at the eyepiece. His insights are a real eye-opener (I’m so sorry, I had to). I will keep the terrible puns to an absolute minimum in the presentation, promise 😉 Hope to see you at the 6:30 pm BBQ/Potluck!