by Gene Allen, Secretary

The meeting was convened on Zoom by Director Rex Parker at 1930. Following a brief introduction Program Chair Victor Davis introduced speaker Dr. Mario Motta, MD, who gave us a presentation entitled The Environmental and Medical Consequences of Light Pollution. Many of the studies to which he referred and his astrophotos are available on his website at www.mariomotta.com. His talk was followed by fifteen minutes of questions and a five minute break. Attending were 36 online.

Some 27 continued with us when we reconvened at 2115 with an Unjournal Presentation by Member Jim Peck about his childhood visit to Meteor Crater in Arizona and the Meteorite Study Kit he bought.

The business meeting opened at 2115 with Outreach Chair Bill Murray expressing thanks for Members Jeff Pinyan, Ira Polans, Dave Skitt and Gene Allen who brought basic visual scopes to his How to Buy Your First Telescope presentation at the NJ State Museum Planetarium on November 25. After his talk they represented the AAAP and shared their experiences with the attendees. Bill also recommended the free Science Under the Stars talk at the Planetarium on January 20 at 1600. It will be entitled Strange New Worlds and deal with the recent discoveries of exoplanets by Dr Josh Winn, a Princeton University professor. Watch the museum Events page to see when you can register to attend:

https://nj.gov/state/museum/events-calendar.shtml

Observatory Co-Chair Dave Skitt reported that the observatory was without electrical power. The Park is supplied by both PSE&G and JCP&L which complicates reporting and repair. Member Tom Swords installed the new-to-us GSO focuser on the Orion XT12i Dobsonian and collimated it. He also collimated the Explore Scientific 5” refractor. Purchase of a couple of multi-bandpass filters is planned along with additional filter drawers to protect them by permanently holding them to reduce handling.

Rex presented a fairly in-depth review of the Galileo Project being lead at Harvard University by former AAAP speaker Avi Loeb. As stated on their website, “The goal of the Galileo Project is to bring the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs) from accidental or anecdotal observations and legends to the mainstream of transparent, validated and systematic scientific research. This project is complementary to traditional SETI, in that it searches for physical objects, and not electromagnetic signals, associated with extraterrestrial technological equipment.”

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galileo

Appreciation was expressed for Member Rich Sherman who spent his time and energy to drive to the Everglades and set up his telescope in the hope of sending us video of the over-publicized “occultation” or “eclipse” of Betelgeuse by an asteroid. His location unfortunately got clouded out. The videos later offered online from unclouded locations showed a barely perceptible dimming, not the winking out that was expected.

The meeting was adjourned at 2228.

Membership currently numbers 200, with 55 having joined in 2023. There have been 123 renewals while 49 have allowed their membership to expire, giving us a 72% retention rate.