Astronomical League National Headquarters
9201 Ward Parkway; Suite 100
Kansas City, MO 64114
ALOffice@earthlink.net
1-816-333-7759
www.astroleague.org
Friday,
July 4, was a momentous day. While the convention program
was going on, the Mars Pathfinder mission landed on
Mars. Attendees could listen to the talks, or watch
NASA-TV on the Copper Mountain Cable system. The talks
included Dr. Ben Clark speaking on "Anticipated Martian
Discoveries from Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder",
and Dr. John Brandt (pictured at left) on "Recent Spacecraft
Observations and Discoveries Related to Comet Hale-Bopp".
A conference call was then placed to Ken Wilcox in Bolivia where the Astronomical League's Southern Sky Star Party was being held. Southern Sky is a now annual event where Astronomical League members travel to South America to view all the objects in the southern sky that are invisible from the northern hemisphere. This was followed by the Astronomical League's Annual Business Meeting. Minutes of this meeting appear elsewhere.
During lunch, the Mars Pathfinder landed on the planet. NASA Select had live views from the Pathfinder Control Room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The Pathfinder was able to send back telemetry indicating it had survived the landing. This was exciting news!
The afternoon started with a talk by Mr. Adam Block on the "NOAO Public Outreach: A New Era for Amateur Astronomy". This was followed by this year's National Young Astronomer Award winner Heather Cameron who talked about her multi-year solar observing project in "To the Sun and Back".
Ms. Cameron has been interested in observing the Sun in the radio
portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Her first observations
were of ionospheric enhancement caused by solar flares.
After building a receiver to observe a distant very
low frequency (VLF) radio station and measure the signal
strength with a chart recorder, she began correlating
the signal with solar phenomena. When a solar flare
occurs, the ionosphere is becomes more electrically
charged, and the signal from the distant VLF station
suddenly increase. This is called sudden enhancement
of signal (SES).
After observing for many months, Ms. Cameron was able to correlate her observations with solar flares, auroral activity, and coronal holes. Non-solar phenomena she observed included sunrise, sunset, electric lights, refrigerators, and electric motors. She was able to determine a solar rotation rate of 31 days. Later, she obtained a used satellite "dish" antenna and used it to more directly observe the Sun. She is now trying to build an pair of "horn" antennas to study the temperature of the surface of the Sun.
The Mountain Astronomical Research Section and the Front Range Astronomical Super Cluster (MARS/FRASC) then held their business meeting. MARS is the Region of the Astronomical League that includes Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. FRASC formed from astronomical societies on the front range of the Rockies and spread out over some of the same area. All of the societies in these areas had the opportunity to tell everyone about their activities during the past year.
Before the evening program, news came in from JPL that the petals of Mars Pathfinder had successfully opened. This crucial event meant that the we would at least get images from the surface of Mars, and we even might be able to get the Rover onto the surface. It was announced that with the successful landing, the Pathfinder would be known as the "Carl Sagan Station" in honor of the man who had contributed greatly to the planetary sciences and did so much to popularize astronomy as well as found the Planetary Society.
The evening meal was a Wild West Barbecue. Held near the horse riding stables, the food was plentiful and the company interesting. Ms. Jeannie Kuich, an author and story teller, told us about the "Soap Operas of the Sky". A wildfire many tens of miles away brought a pall of smoke to the startlingly clear mountain sky. The fire was extinguished later that night, and never affected observing. Those who wanted to see fireworks took the shuttle bus to Lake Dillon to see what was described as "some of the best fireworks ever" to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence 211 years earlier.
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Read about Wednesday's events at ALCon '97.
Read about Thursday's events at ALCon '97.
Read about Saturday's events at ALCon '97.
Astronomical League National Headquarters
9201 Ward Parkway; Suite 100
Kansas City, MO 64114
ALOffice@earthlink.net
1-816-333-7759
www.astroleague.org