by Victor Davis, Program Chair

He Who Lives in Harmony with Himself Lives in Harmony with the Universe
Marcus Aurelius

Smooth Moves: Why Strain Wave Mounts are Taking Over
The October, 2025 meeting of the AAAP will take place in Peyton Hall on the campus of Princeton University on Tuesday, October 14^th at 7:30 PM. As usual, the meeting is open to AAAP members and the public. Participants can join the meeting in-person at Peyton Hall or log in to the Zoom session as early as 7:00 pm to chat informally before the meeting begins.

The evening’s guest speaker, Michael DiMario, chairs this club’s Astroimaging-EAA Group. Due to a misunderstanding regarding meeting dates, Dr. DiMario will step in to take over for Becka Phillipson, who will be rescheduled for a future meeting

Also, Eklavya Doegar and her fellow members of the Unistellar Student Group will show images they acquired with the newly donated “smart” telescope and discuss their experiences using it.

Options for Attending the Meeting
You may choose to attend the meeting in person or participate via Zoom or YouTube as we’ve been doing for the past few years. (See How to Participate below for details). Due to security concerns, if you log in before the host has set up internet connectivity in Peyton Hall, you may need to wait in the Waiting Room for a few minutes until the host is prepared to admit you into the meeting. You’ll need to unmute yourself to make comments or ask questions. It’s polite, though not required, for you to enable your camera so other participants can see you. The meeting will be recorded and edited for posting to our club’s YouTube channel.

No “meet the speaker dinner”
Dr. DiMario has expressed his preference to forego the traditional pre-meeting dinner at Winberie’s.

Here’s the anticipated agenda for October 14, 2025’s monthly meeting of the AAAP:

Getting to Peyton Hall
The parking lots across the street (Ivy Lane) from Peyton Hall are now construction sites, unavailable for parking. We’ve been advised by the administration of the astrophysics department that we should park in the new enclosed parking garage off Fitzrandolph street and walk around the stadium and athletic fields. Here’s a map of the campus and walking routes from the parking garage to Peyton Hall. The map shows the recently completed East Garage. Not shown is an access road Sweet Gum that connects from Faculty Road to an entrance at the lower left corner of the garage. Stadium Road connects from Fitzrandolph Road to another entrance at the opposite corner (and higher level) of the garage. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from the parking garage to Peyton Hall.

Smooth Moves: Why Strain Wave Mounts are Taking Over
Telescope mounts have come a long way — from bulky worm gears to sleek, high‑precision systems. Strain wave mounts (also called harmonic drives) are transforming how we track the night sky. By using elastic motion instead of traditional gear teeth, these mounts offer extreme precision, near‑zero backlash, and compact designs. This talk will explain strain wave technology, how it works, compare it to traditional worm‑gear mounts, and explore why it’s becoming a game‑changer for amateur astronomy. No engineering background required — just curiosity and a love of the stars.

Michael DiMario, PhD
Michael DiMario has recently retired from Lockheed Martin serving various executive roles and has held executive engineering positions at General Electric Medical and Lucent Technologies/Bell Laboratories. Michael has six patents, a published book on systems engineering, several published book chapters, more than fifty peer reviewed papers. He has been interviewed and quoted in Wired Magazine, GPS World, Sifted, and the Financial Times. In regard to his astronomical pursuits, he chairs the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton Astroimaging Group, spends many a night astroimaging, and does considerable astronomical history research. He co-shares the earliest precovery of Pluto on Edward Barnard 1909 photographic glass plates located at Yerkes Observatory.

How to Participate (Links)
Zoom & YouTube Live
Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Time: October 14, 2025 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
Topic: October 2025 AAAP Meeting-Michael DiMario, PhD, Astroimaging Chair, AAAP
Time: October 14, 2025 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)


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Click the above icons for Zoom and YouTube

Breakthrough Starshot
When last month’s guest speaker, Edwin Turner, visited Peyton Hall several years ago, his topic was the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. This now-abandoned project was funded by billionaire Yuri Milner. The idea is to launch tiny probes weighing a gram or so attached to reflective sails into orbit and then use high-powered lasers to accelerate them to 20% of the speed of light and direct them to the nearest stars. The history of this project and its quiet demise are described in a recent article in Scientific American magazine. Apparently both billionaires and politicians can be capricious and arbitrary. You can read the article at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-quiet-demise-of-breakthrough-starshot-a-billionaires-interstellar/

A look ahead at future guest speakers:

Date	Featured Speaker	Topic
Nov. 11, 2025	Romain Teyssier Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and Applied and Computational Mathematics Princeton University teyssier@princeton.edu	Prof. Teyssier’s main research activity is to perform simulations of cosmic structure using supercomputers in order to understand the origins of stars and galaxies.
Dec. 9, 2025	Sihao Cheng Postdoc Member scheng@ias.edu Jiaxuan Li Graduate Student jiaxuanl@princeton.edu Eritas Yang Graduate Student eritas.yang@princeton.edu	Discovery of Dwarf Planet Candidate in an Extremely Wide Orbit   Dr. Cheng and colleagues discovered in publicly available data from the Dark Energy Camera a dwarf planet candidate, 2017 OF201, currently located at a distance of 90.5 au. Its orbit is extremely wide and extends to the inner Oort cloud, with a semi-major axis of 838 au and a perihelion of 44.9 au precisely determined from 19 observations over seven years. Assuming a typical albedo of 0.15, they estimate a diameter about 700 km, making it the second-largest known object in this dynamical population and a likely dwarf planet.   Thanks to Nick Mellis for suggesting these speakers.
Jan. 12, 2026	Not Yet Scheduled
Feb. 12, 2026	John Bochanski Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science and Physics Rider University	Dr. Bochanski has been connected to the Legacy Survey of Space and Time Discovery Alliance since his graduate studies more than 15 years ago. Rider University is part of the global effort using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to map the optical sky. The Rubin observatory (formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST) will capture more information about our Universe than all other optical telescopes throughout history combined. The observatory released its first images this past June. Prof. Bochanski will discuss the project’s history and discoveries.   Thanks to Nick Mellis for suggesting this speaker.
Mar. 10, 2026	Robert Vanderbei Emeritus Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering Princeton University   AAAP Assistant Director rvdb@princeton.edu	Prof.  Bob Vanderbei will talk about stellar dynamics.
Apr. 14, 2026	Not Yet Scheduled
May 12, 2026	John Horgan Science Writer horganism3@gmail.com	Mr. Horgan will discuss his controversial 1996 book The End of Science, in which he argues that pure science, defined as “the primordial human quest to understand the universe and our place in it,” may be coming to an end. Horgan claims that science will not achieve insights into nature as profound as evolution by natural selection, the double helix, the Big Bang, relativity theory or quantum mechanics. In the future, he suggests, scientists will refine, extend and apply this pre-existing knowledge but will not achieve any more great “revolutions or revelations.” Shades of Auguste Comte, perhaps?   We expect to have copies of his book(s) for sale for the author to sign at the conclusion of his presentation.   Thanks to Rex Parker for engaging this speaker.
Jun 9, 2026	Jacob Hamer Assistant Curator NJ State Museum Planetarium Jacob.Hamer@sos.nj.gov	As usual, the June meeting will take place in the planetarium at the NJ State Museum in Trenton. There will be no streaming of this live-only sky show and PowerPoint presentation. Topic to be announced.

As always, members’ comments and suggestions are gratefully accepted and much appreciated. Thanks to Ira Polans and Dave Skitt for setting up the online links and connecting the meeting to the world outside Peyton Hall.

victor.davis@verizon.net
program@princetonastronomers.org
(908) 581-1780 cell