Ordinary Meeting, 2005 October 26
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Ordinary Meeting, 2005 October 26
held at The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1
Richard Miles, President
Ron Johnson, Hazel Collett and Nick James, Secretaries
Dr Miles opened the first meeting of the 116th session, expressing his congratulations to his predecessor, Tom Boles, for having seen the Association through two years of rapid change, including a complete change of staff in its Office, and the installation of a new computer system. He expressed the hope that Mr Boles, with the time commitments of running the Association passed, would now be able to devote more time to his eyepiece and to his excellent supernova patrol work. He then invited Mrs Hazel Collett to read the minutes of the last meeting of the previous session, which were approved by members and duly signed.
Mr Ron Johnson, Business Secretary, was then asked whether any presents had been received by the Association since the previous meeting; it was reported that there had been two books: Fifty Golden Years 1954 – 2004, donated by the Aryabhatta Research Institute; and The Stargazing Year, by C.L. Calia, donated by its author. Members applauded the donors.
The President announced that there were 46 new members proposed for election; the election of those 82 who had been proposed at the previous meeting was approved by members, and they were duly declared elected. Dr Miles welcomed any newcomers to introduce themselves at the end of the meeting. Mr Nick James, Papers Secretary, reported that Council had approved six new papers for Journal publication:
Performance of a Fibre-Optic Coupled High Resolution Spectrograph with CCD Camera Data Recording of Solar Absorption Spectra, by David Airey
A Home-Made Newtonian Filter Holder for Planetary Imaging, by Martin Mobberley
The Visibility of the Dark Side of Venus 1921-1953; A Series of Observations by M.B.B. Heath, by Richard Baum
The Perseid Meteor Shower in 2002, by Neil Bone
A Small-Aperture Telescope Detection of the Radial Velocity Variation of τ-Boëtes due to the Orbital Motion of the Substellar Companion, by Sigfried Vanaverbek
Observations of the Recently Discovered Dwarf Nova 1RXS J053234.9+624755 During the 2005 March Superoutburst, by Jeremy Shears
Dr Miles announced that the Association's next meeting would be the Northern Back To Basics Workshop, to be held in Doncaster on Saturday November 12. The following week, there would be a meeting of the Instruments & Imaging Section on November 19 in The Humfrey Rooms, Castilian Terrace, Northampton. The next Ordinary Meeting would be the Christmas Meeting, to be held in the English Heritage Lecture Theatre on the afternoon of Saturday December 17; the Christmas Lecture would this year be delivered by Prof Don Kurtz, and would be followed by Rod Jenkins and Martin Mobberley.
The President then welcomed Nick James to make a short presentation of images on behalf of all those who had observed the annular solar eclipse of October 3.