From bhavner at ricochet.net Wed May 2 17:21:26 2001 From: bhavner at ricochet.net (Bob & Brenda Havner) Date: Fri Jul 29 03:57:03 2005 Subject: [SJAA-announce] May 5th Meeting; Seth Shostak Message-ID: <001201c0d367$074f3ea0$6386b3cc@havner> SJAA General Meeting, Saturday May 5th 8:00 Houge Park Meeting Hall Speaker: Seth Shostak Seth Shostak of the SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute will be speaking at the May 5th Meeting. In his talk, titled " The Chances for Finding E.T.", He will discuss new developments in both the science and technology of SETI. Also if a signal is found, how will the news be made public? What will we learn? And what effect will it have on our society? His book, "Sharing the Universe; Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life", ponders the question Is there life elsewhere?, what kind of life it may be and how it would differ from the visitors that we see from Hollywood, and how we may find evidence of its existence. Ending with a complete history of SETI and the science and the technology SETI uses. Seth will have copies of "Sharing the Universe" for sale at the meeting for $15. Come hear this fascinating talk Saturday night. The SETI web site: www.seti.org/Welcome.html has links to Reports from Arecibo. A diary Seth has written for Space.com on a trip to the Arecibo Radio Telescope in March . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaa-announce/attachments/20010502/b572eab7/attachment.html From mojo at whiteoaks.com Thu May 17 17:15:41 2001 From: mojo at whiteoaks.com (Morris Jones) Date: Fri Jul 29 03:57:03 2005 Subject: [SJAA-announce] Observational Astronomy Class Friday Message-ID: When: Friday May 18 7:30 p.m. Where: Houge Park meeting room What: Observing Galaxies Who: Guest instructor, Morris Jones This Friday at Houge Park we'll talk about our favorite deep sky telescope target: galaxies. We'll start with some background and theory for a little perspective, and then we'll get into the practicalities of how to hunt down the light from those distant island universe. We'll discuss the basic skills and tools of the trade, specifically as they apply to hunting down galaxies -- including charts, finders, eyepieces, and telescopes. We'll have plenty of pretty pictures too. Join us for Observational Astronomy, Friday evening, Houge Park, 7:30 p.m. Mojo -- Morris Jones <*> San Rafael, CA mojo@whiteoaks.com http://www.whiteoaks.com From mojo at whiteoaks.com Fri May 25 21:15:39 2001 From: mojo at whiteoaks.com (Morris Jones) Date: Fri Jul 29 03:57:03 2005 Subject: [SJAA-announce] June Ephemeris available online Message-ID: The June 2001 SJAA Ephemeris is now available online, HTML and PDF as usual. There's a new version of Acrobat available, 5.0. Maybe it'll solve some of the problems reader 4.0 has had. :) http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/ Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones <*> San Rafael, CA mojo@whiteoaks.com http://www.whiteoaks.com From koopm at best.com Wed May 30 02:44:40 2001 From: koopm at best.com (Michael Koop) Date: Fri Jul 29 03:57:03 2005 Subject: [SJAA-announce] Cosmos Education Message-ID: Kevin Hand is a graduate student at Stanford University who is organizing a program called 'Under African Skies' eclipse conference and education expedition. It has the potential to reach thousands of students in Africa and the US. Kevin is looking for donations of unused telescopes to give to schools over in Africa. He is also looking for donations of books, Astronomy or National Geographic Magazines, or anything which might be useful in the classroom. Of course, monetary donations are always appreciated! He will be attending the SJAA general meeting this Saturday, June 2nd at 8PM, giving a 10 minute presentation of the program and to collect any donations. Here is the primary web site: http://www.cosmoseducation.org Additional information is at http://www.africaneclipse.org Links to PDF files containing all the details: http://www.cosmoseducation.org/download/download.html Kevin can be reached by email at khand@cosmoseducation.org or by phone at 415-377-9053 SJAA Meeting Info at http://www.sjaa.net **************** Kevins Email It's a bit late for Cosmos Education to be looking for sponsorship/donations from SJAA or AANC, but nevertheless it would be great if you could forward our information to these groups. If nothing else, just letting people in the astronomy world know what we're doing is a big help. I grew up and did my undergrad back east in VT/NH and am quite familiar with clubs back there (Stellefane!), but unfortunately I have not had time to be much of a member of any clubs out here. Any help or ideas you have would be greatly appreciated. We will be sending back images and stories using the amateur satellites, thus any help downloading on this end would great. Additionally, any used ham-radio equipment could be a great help. The Stanford Aero/Astro department is going to loan us some equipment, but we could certainly use more! In brief, Cosmos Education's 2001 Under African Skies Project involves two components: an education expedition and an eclipse conference. The education expedition involves an international team of roughly 10 grad students and young professionals (see http://www.cosmoseducation.org/about/team.html) traveling by land from Johannesburg to Nairobi over the course of 5 weeks (June 11-July 19). Along the way we will be visiting schools to talk with teachers and students about science, and technology and the peaceful uses of outer space. The topics of astronomy, space, and life in the universe will be used to capture the imagination; the topics of sustainable development, remote sensing, and appropriate technologies will be used to tie this information back down to Earth. Many of the schools we visit will be schools visited by me (Kevin Hand) in 2000 - for a story on this adventure see http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/feature/archive.html. The second component of Under African Skies involves a three-day conference that is being held at the University of Zambia in Lusaka. This conference will cover the topics of science and technology, but also aims to explore the role of the Cosmos in African cultures, folklore, and legend. The conference will have two tracks - one research track catered to University students, researchers, and professors, and one education track catered to secondary school students and teachers. The research track presents an opportunity for people to present their work and ideally we will raise enough money to produce a conference proceedings from this track. Currently, along with researchers from Zambia, we have African scientists from the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), the African Committee on Meteorological and Agricultural Development, the University of Nairobi, and several other institutions. We have raised enough money to sponsor people from the Niger Republic, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and even Croatia! The education track will focus on hands on learning. Teachers, students, and Cosmos Education team members will work together on group projects relating to everything from alternative energy (building solar panels) to the size and scale of the solar system. To date we have raised over 24K but we are still trying to raise roughly 5K before 'launch' on June 11th. In addition, we have received thousands of dollars worth of in kind donations from books publishers and education companies. We are still collecting used books, telescopes, microscopes,.....you name it, chances are if it has a place in the classroom, we'll find it a good home in Africa! Cosmos Education can be contacted via email or by phone at the information below. We are a member of the Tides Center of San Francisco, CA and thus have non-profit 501(c)3 status - all donations are tax deductible. Thank you for your time and energy, Kevin Hand khand@cosmoseducation.org 415-377-9053 George Whitesides gwhitesides@cosmoseducation.org -- ____________________________________________________________ Cosmos Education - Education for an Expanding Universe http://www.cosmoseducation.org , http://www.africaneclipse.org 415-377-9053, 796 Escondido Rd, Apt. 38A, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University http://cisac.stanford.edu Astrobiology Integration Office, NASA Ames Research Center http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov From bhavner at ricochet.net Wed May 30 20:19:05 2001 From: bhavner at ricochet.net (Bob & Brenda Havner) Date: Fri Jul 29 03:57:03 2005 Subject: [SJAA-announce] General Meeting June 2nd Message-ID: <001c01c0e980$7b69f080$8186b3cc@havner> SJAA General Meeting, Saturday June 2nd 8:00 p.m. Houge Park Meeting Hall Speaker: Dr. Larry Lasher The History of Pioneer 10/11 and the Search for the Heliosphere Dr. Lasher is the Project manager of the Pioneer Project for NASA. He will be speaking on the history of the Pioneer 10/11 missions, the discoveries they made about the solar system, the search for the heliospheric boundaries, and the latest attempts to contact Pioneer 10. Pioneer 10 was launched some 29 years ago to investigate the planet Jupiter. The significance of Pioneer 10, followed later by Pioneer 11, is that these were the first spacecraft to visit Jupiter, Saturn, and leave the solar system. One of its last objectives is to find the boundary of interstellar space. For info and directions go to: www.sjaa.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.sjaa.net/pipermail/sjaa-announce/attachments/20010530/d930649d/attachment.html