by Gene Allen, Secretary

Assistant Director Bob Vanderbei opened the meeting in Peyton Hall and on Zoom at 1930. There were 34 attending in person, 39 watching on YouTube, and 39 participating on Zoom.

After a few words of welcome, Bob introduced Program Chair Victor Davis who, in turn, introduced science journalist and author Rebecca Boyle. Her talk, “Our Moon, Ourselves,” was based on her book, Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are. She explored how pervasive the Moon has been in all facets of life over human history.

Questions and a break followed her talk.

The meeting reconvened at 2104 with an Unjournal Presentation by Director Rex Parker describing the Vera C. Rubin Observatory expected to be complete this summer. It will use a 28 foot primary mirror and the largest camera ever built to do a 10 year synoptic survey of the universe from Cerro Pachon in Chile. It is funded by the NSF and DOE and private donations.

Rex segwayed into David Wiltshire’s concept of Timescape, which proposes that uneven time dilation due to the lumpiness of the universe looks like the acceleration of expansion that has been attributed to dark energy in the predominant Lambda Cold Dark Matter model.

That discussion led into Bob Vanderbei’s somewhat playful conjecture that instead of dark energy pushing the visible galaxies apart there are unseen, gravitationally repulsive antimatter galaxies doing the pushing. The concept has generally been dismissed, but throughout history many ideas once considered outlandish have later been validated.

The business meeting proceeded at 2124 with members sharing images and videos of the occultation of Mars by the Moon.

Member Tom Swords captured an impressive image of Jupiter by taking a video in ASIcap and dropping it into ASIstack to select the best frames out of thousands.

Victor Davis requests comments on a mockup of the Gene Ramsey Memorial Plaque that was published in Sidereal Times. Merchandise Shop Lead Facilitator and professional photographer Rich Sherman offered to sharpen the image and Observatory Co-Chair Dave Skitt will send Rich the original copy of that image. Rich will also video the dedication ceremony.

There was interest in arranging another field trip. Suggestions included the Udvar-Hazy extension of the Air & Space Museum at Dulles, the Horn at Holmdel, and Hayden Planetarium in NYC.

Outreach Chair Bill Murray told us the original date of January 6 was clouded out so an event is now scheduled for February 3 for a Girl Scout Troop at Montgomery High School. Volunteers with telescopes are needed.

A Board of Directors meeting has been proposed for February 4.

The meeting was adjourned at 2201.

As of January 12, we have 215 active members. For all of CY2024, renewals numbered 131 and expirations numbered 53, giving us a 71% retention rate. We added 72 new members.

Submitted by Secretary Gene Allen
January 26, 2024