Ordinary Meeting, 2009 December 12
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Ordinary Meeting, 2009 December 12
held at the Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London SE1
David Boyd, President
Ron Johnson, Hazel Collett and Nick James, Secretaries
The President opened the second meeting of the 120th Session and announced that the minutes of the previous meeting were on display at the back of the lecture theatre. He announced that 25 new members were proposed for election, and those 34 new members who had been proposed at the previous meeting were approved by the audience and declared duly elected. Mr Nick James, Papers Secretary, reported that six papers had been approved for publication in the Journal:
Nocturnal occultations of Venus, by Jean Meeus
Invisible sunspots and 'orphan' prominences: an observational study, by Fred Nye
Measuring the superhump period of the dwarf nova RX J1715.6+6856, by Jeremy Shears
Noctilucent Cloud over the UK and Western Europe, 2006-2008, by Ken Kennedy
Where have all the aurorae gone?, by Ron Livesey
The first Pic du Midi photographs of Mars, 1909, by Audouin Dollfus
The President announced that the next Ordinary Meeting would be held on Wednesday January 27 at the present venue. Looking further ahead, the next in the Association's series of Back to Basics workshops would be held at the University of Nottingham on Saturday January 30. The Association's annual Winchester Weekend would be held over the weekend of April 9-11.
Before introducing the afternoon's speakers, the President briefly mentioned that the Association's Solar Section had recently produced a new observing handbook, which could be purchased from the BAA Office, either at the present meeting or via the Association's website, for £7.50. He then paused proceedings while Dr Richard Miles finished an observing run using a pre-allocated slot of time on the Faulkes Telescope South, taking the opportunity in so doing to talk the audience through the process of using its web interface to make live observations of a range of asteroids, including (7102) NeilBone, named in honoured of the late Director of the Association's Meteor Section.
The President then introduced the afternoon's first speaker, Mr Jonathan Shanklin, Director of the Association's Comet Section, and invited him to deliver the Association's annual George Alcock Memorial Lecture.