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Potpourri Night

Host: Randy Attwood

Presentations:

Randy Attwood    The June 10 Solar Eclipse - what to expect and how to observe it safely

Simon Claughton   Skylab - The beginning.  A philatelic history Part 1

Randy Attwood, Kirby Alguire, Allan Connery  The centre's email groups.   The Astrophotography Groups IO email group has been around for a while but it is not very active. We will discuss the plan to make it and some new discussion groups active places for members to learn things and discuss various areas of interest.  An Observiing email list and a Beginner email list have been set up and will soon be rolled out.

The May 10 1994 Annular Eclipse - 27 years ago , an Annular Eclipse passed right through Toronto. Many RASC members were busy with a live Astronomy Toronto in front of the McLaughlin Planetarium.  Much Music was camped next to us and they had their own interesting take on the eclipse, including an interview with a pet astrologer/psychic!

Zoom link: Click here to join the meeting

Speaker Night

Speaker: Emily Carney

Title:  Skylab: An Overview
Talk Abstract:  Skylab, which was crewed from 1973 to 1974, enjoyed only a brief moment in the cultural zeitgeist (and, of course, infamously reentered over parts of Western Australia). While the United States’ first space station is often overlooked in the canon of space history, this talk will discuss its origins from its “wet workshop” days to its legacy, and direct descendant – the International Space Station (ISS), which still orbits above us.

Information about our speaker:

Emily Carney is a spaceflight enthusiast and author hailing from Saint Petersburg, Florida. Her first vivid space memory was seeing Columbia launch in late 1981 (STS-2). Even though she was very young (three years old) and the launch was 140 miles away from where she stood, she’ll never forget it. From then on, she was obsessed with the space shuttle, and spaceflight in general.

In 1997, Carney enlisted in the United States Navy, and at one point worked as a nuclear propulsion mechanical operator aboard the USS George Washington (CVN 73). When she was honorably discharged in 2003, she went back to college and earned a degree in education. She only taught for a brief time, but after she left the education field, her passion for spaceflight was reignited.

Carney worked as a freelance writer from 2008 to 2011, and during that time she started a spaceflight blog, This Space Available (accessible via https://space.nss.org/category/this-space-available/). She also co-hosts a weekly podcast, Space and Things, with Dave Giles (https://spaceandthingspodcast.com/).
In 2011, Carney wanted to start a Facebook group for space enthusiasts, but was struggling to find a good name. Her husband, Steve, suggested “Space Hipsters” as sort of a sarcastic placeholder, but the name stuck. The group grew more quickly than she could imagine, and at present time it totals over 20,000 members. Space Hipsters boasts members from all around the world, and includes space enthusiasts, writers, artists, scientists, engineers, aspiring astronauts, and even a few actual astronauts.

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84379657584

Potpourri NIght

Host: Randy Attwood

Presentations

Allan Connery - Telescope Loan Program Update

Simon Berlet - Maintaining the CFHT

Keith Jarvie - Life on Venus?

Ron Macnaughton - Microbial Mats on Earth -  and perhaps on Mars.

What was called "the "oldest uncontested biogenic structure" found on Earth is a microbial mat from West Australia.   These structures form when microbes glue a layer of sediment together leaving characteristic patterns. If life existed on Mars,  it is possible that similar structures might be detected by the Perseverance rover which has instruments to identify large carbon containing molecules.

David Maynard - My Astrophotography Learning Experience

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87464539803