by John Miller, Secretary

●  The meeting convened at 7:30 PM via Zoom and Yahoo (online).  There were initially about 59 Zoom attendees.

●   The Board of Trustees candidate slate, for 2021 – 2022, presented at last month’s meeting, was voted via an online survey app.  The results, matching/exceeding the required quorum of 50% current AAAP membership:

           *Rex Parker, Director

           *Larry Kane, Assistant Director

           *John Miller, Secretary

           *Michael Mitrano, Treasurer

           *Victor Davis, Program Chair

           *David and Jennifer Skitt, Observatory Co-chairs

●  Progress regarding the WCSP Observatory repairs and State permissions for same was discussed. The State Park officials are requiring the AAAP have a State-approved engineer certify our final repair plans/objectives.

● Victor Davis introduced the evening’s guest speaker: Alexander Hayes, Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy at Cornell University.  Professor Hayes talk was titled: “Ocean Worlds of the Outer Solar System.”  The topic included studying the possibility of Europa, Enceladus or Titan having environmental conditions biochemically favorable to forms of life.  

●  Member Sam Sherman introduced a current project on which he is working, using Calculus to prove Kepler’s 3^rd Law and determine the mass of Jupiter using calculations derived from thr four Galilean moons.  The law states that the ratio of the square of an object’s orbital period with the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit is the same for all objects orbiting the same primary. This captures the relationship between the distance of planets from the Sun, and their orbital periods.  Sam is 17 years old.

●  AAAP member Ira Polans gave a short presentation describing his visit to the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. Ira highlighted the history of the Apollo missions with additional information and images relating to the Shuttle and ISS missions.

●  Observatory Chair David Skitt reviewed ongoing plans to train observatory key-holders on operational procedures. This included added management of visitor management to adhere to Covid 19 restrictions. Currently, only AAAP members are allowed on-site.  We have entered  observatory visitation rules “Phase 2” (temporarily modified for Covid precautions). <20 people on premise at one time.

●  Observatory Chair David Skitt reviewed ongoing plans to train observatory key-holders on operational procedures. This included added management of visitor management to adhere to Covid 19 restrictions. Currently, only AAAP members are allowed on-site.  We have entered  observatory visitation rules “Phase 2” (temporarily modified for Covid precautions).

<20 people on premise at one time.

<6 people inside the observatory at any given time.

Up to four telescopes in the observing field.

The meeting adjourned at 10 P.M.