President Bernie Zelazny called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM in Rom 204 ACR Building on the Sul Ross Campus.  There were 6 or 7 people present.  Bernie had planned to present a video on A Virtual Journey through a Small Portion of the Universe based on determinations of the positions of galaxies, but technical difficulties made that impossible.  Instead, Bernie showed 2010: A Space Odyssey, a sequel to 2001.

       Our president called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM in our usual quarters. There were 9 people present.
       Ever resourceful, Bernie Zelazny overcame last month's  technical problems and showed us a two-minute video on A Virtual Journey through a Small Portion of the Universe. This video, produced by the Swinburne Center for Astrophysics and Supercomputers, in cooperation with other Australian organizations, was based on the locations of 100,000 galaxies determined from their redshifts and observed positions. The video took us on a 2-minute journey through the universe, zooming through a swarm of galaxies, many shown as high-quality images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
       As we moved through the universe, the galaxies that we approached grew in size and eventually passed out of the edges of our visual field in a compelling simulation of the apparent motion we would experience on such a journey. We were fascinated, and asked for two encore performances of the video.

       The business meeting took place after the above program. In the absence of Treasurer Betty Grimm, Jim Walker read the following treasurer's report, which Betty had supplied:

       John Bell reported that he is working to arrange a star party for the Ft. Davis schools.  He wants to meet with the kids before the star party.  We also discussed the possibility of holding one of our regular BBAS meetings in Ft. Davis.  There was general agreement that this would be a good thing.
       Bernie Zelazny reported that Susan Curry had asked whether new lights at Coca Cola Plant were installed after the date of the Alpine Lighting Ordinance.  No one was sure.  Bernie also reported that a new neighbor in Sunny Glen had left bright lights on for several hours.  Bernie called on the neighbor, who has now installed motion sensors.  Problem solved!
       Jim Walker reported that the lights at the new Post Office remain in violation of the lighting ordinance.  The Alpine City Council voted unanimously on Sept 12 to send a Notice of Noncompliance to Horack Construction, El Paso, owners of the building.

       Here endeth the writing of the minutes.

        Melanie Maxcey, a reporter with the Odessa American, shows continuing interest in the Post Office problem.  She called again on Sept 19, and we discussed the issues at length on the phone.  Her article on September 26, with an Alpine dateline, begins, "The wall lights at the new U. S. Post office are causing a bit of an uproar."  Somehow, I'm beginning to feel like the mouse that roared.
        The saga of the Post Office goes on, and on . . .

        The northern lights, rarely seen this far south, were visible in the El Paso area before dawn on Saturday. When he woke up before dawn at Hueco Tanks State Historical Park, Chris Grohusko never imagined that he would see a sight more common to people living above the Arctic Circle. "They're like ghosts," he said. "It's like a gentle breeze is blowing these pillars of grayish white light in and out of existence." Grohusko captured the event on film.
        Frank Cianciolo, at McDonald Observatory, said the lights resulted from a huge, electrically charged mass of energy that was ejected from the sun's surface Thursday.  Such coronal mass ejections are like bubbles of very hot gas that get blown off the surface of the sun.
        When you're outside during the dark of the moon, look for the aurora in the northern sky. We are approaching a period of maximum solar activity, so we can expect to see the aurora much farther south than usual.

        We had a good look at Comet LINEAR at our star party on July 22.  Good thing, because the comet blew apart so thoroughly  on July 26 that astronomers couldn't find any sizable pieces from its fractured icy core.  New groundbased images revealed no fragments brighter than 22nd magnitude. The new data are fueling speculation that Comet LINEAR itself might have been the fragment of a larger body that passed through the inner solar system centuries ago.  Shades of Shoemaker-Levy 9!

        Astronomers have found what appear to be 10 more previously unknown planets orbiting stars beyond the sun, including one so tantalizingly close that it could become the first such world that astronomers can study directly. The latest discoveries bring the total to about 50 planets around sun-like stars. Not one of those extrasolar systems resembles our own solar system.
        The new batch includes a possible planet with about the mass of Jupiter orbiting a star called Epsilon Eridani, a mere 10.5 light-years (61 trillion miles) from Earth and visible to the naked eye. It is the closest star yet found to have a planetary companion, according to William D. Cochran of McDonald Observatory.  "We're very excited. It's so close it's as if it's right on our own block," he said. Cochran described the team's discovery today at the 24th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Manchester, England.
        Two other teams led by astronomers from the United States and Europe reported the detection of nine additional planets along with new details on the trends emerging in the accumulating data. One eventual goal of the search is to detect systems that resemble the sun's family of planets, and eventually ferret out any Earth-like worlds where life might have arisen. 

        The September 9th issue of the influential London-edited news magazine, The Economist, devoted its lead Science and Technology report to the problem of dark skies under the heading "Going, going, nearly gone." The article highlights the recent work by three researchers, two Italian, in developing a new and more accurate way of measuring the degree of light pollution from space. Among other things, their study predicts that by 2025 the Milky Way will be invisible from anywhere in Italy, as it already is for nearly 2/3rds of Americans. Given their techniques they report that a single street lamp can affect the astronomical viewing of the night sky by up to 124 miles.
        The article reviews the various ways of reducing light pollution and the efforts of the International Dark Sky Association, aided by this year's $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. It also discusses the problems of radio astronomers in protecting their narrow frequencies from invasion, particularly by the cell phone. The demise of the Iridium system, it seems, will not offer much of a respite unless providers are more vigorously policed and confined to their allotted parts of the radio spectrum.
        Accompanying the article is a short report on the new planetarium instruments, such as the one installed recently at the Hayden planetarium in New York. The wonders of these new projectors in reproducing the night sky is such that one can profitably use a pair of binoculars just as one could looking at the real thing. Also of note is the capacity of these projectors to display the effects of light pollution -- thus making them into a powerful tool for educating those Americans about the difference between their sky as it is and their sky as it might be. Just to add a final touch to this report on the new simulators of the night sky, there is an accompanying cartoon. The father is approaching a planetarium with his little son in tow. The son is asking  "What are stars daddy?"

If we have not yet received your dues, then please use the convenient envelope addressed to our treasurer that is included with this copy of your Newsletter.

Betty Lou Grimm, Treasurer
Big Bend Astronomical Society, Inc.
1001 N 2nd Street, Apt F-22
Alpine, TX 79830