President Bernie Zelazny opened our meeting on January 14 at 7:30 PM in Room 300, Lawrence Hall, on the Sul Ross Campus.  There were 14 people present.  Terry Eakens gave a program entitled Galaxies, well illustrated with many slides (see description below).

           Galaxies are classified into four major categories:  Elliptical; SO, non-spiral galaxies, SO1, SO2, SO3; spiral galaxies, Sa, Sb, Sc, Sd; and Barred Spirals, Sba, SBb, SBc, and Sbd.  Galaxies differ in age from very young to billions of years old, and are located at distances from a few light years to the edge of the visible universe.
           Some distances can be measured by changes in parallax, the apparent position of nearer objects in comparison with farther ones.  The shift of the observed wavelengths of distant objects toward the red end of the spectrum indicates the increasing velocity of those objects as they recede from the earth.  Most objects in the universe are moving away from the earth, although the Andromeda Galaxy is a major galaxy that is moving toward us.  On balance, the red shift in the light of distant galaxies, and the brightness of distant globular clusters and supernovae, provide further evidence of the expansion of the universe.
           Several slides showed the nature of various types of objects that provide evidence of our place in the universe.  The Large Magellanic Cloud is an irregular galaxy about 200,000 light years away in the southern sky.  M87 is a good example of an elliptical galaxy, and M101 is a good example of a spiral galaxy.  Andromeda is our nearest major spiral galaxy, somewhat larger than our home galaxy, the Milky Way.
           M51 shows an arm of a large spiral colliding with another galaxy.  (M51 was the first spiral galaxy recognized as such in the 1800s by Lord Ross, with a 72-inch reflector, a huge telescope for the time).  NGC 4565 is a fine example of an edge-on spiral, showing prominent dust lanes along its outer edge.
           As one of the last slides showed, galaxies tend to be distributed in groups, rather than scattered randomly.  Large telescopes show the clumping of galaxies, as opposed to a totally random distribution.  As yet, we’re not sure what it all means.

           Once again dues are now payable for a new year, 2004. Maintaining your membership entails several ongoing costs, such as liability insurance, insurance on the Murray Newman Telescope, and mailing expenses. So please send in your dues, still only $20.00 per person, to

           We need everyone’s support for the premier astronomical society between Odessa and El Paso, if not beyond.

           We still have some of our Explore the Universe Calendars available for $12.00 each.  If you would like one or more of these beautiful calendars, please call Jim or Barbara Walker at 364-2467.  These calendars are published by Tide-Mark Press, as were the ones we sold a couple of years ago as a fund-raising venture.