by Gene Allen, Secretary

Director Rex Parker opened the meeting in Peyton Hall at 1930 with 54 attending. He reported:

The new website, under construction by Member Jeff Pinyan for many months, is available as a beta version to try out at https://www.princetonastronomy.org/beta. When fully implemented, a login will offer members to exclusive content and functionality.

Member David Ackerman is also a member of Dark Sky International and DarkSky New Jersey. Earlier this year he founded DarkSky Hopewell to remediate bad lighting in Hopewell Borough. His team has helped the Hopewell Village Square convert to dark sky compliant lighting and has two more businesses waiting to follow.

Astroimaging Chair Michael DiMario, PhD will be giving a talk Before Pluto Was Pluto at the Morris County Library in Whippany, NJ on Saturday, September 13.

Restoration of power to the observatory continues to await the glacial response of JCP&L.

NJAA will hold their annual open house and astro flea market on September 13 in High Bridge, NJ.

Program Chair Victor Davis introduced our speaker for tonight, Dr. Edwin L. Turner, Emeritus Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. His talk, An Observable Universe Devoid of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Technological Civilizations Is Plausible, was delivered in person. He showed how many of the presumptions about the likelihood of extraterrestrial life are emotional and not determinant.

Thirty minutes of questions and a break followed the talk.

Rex convened the business meeting at 2122 with 16 attending in Peyton Hall. Fifty years ago Viking 1 was the first spacecraft to successfully land on another planet (Mars) to begin a search for biology. Member Rich Sherman shared images he made of the Antenna Galaxies and Rex showed his of the Trifid and Iris Nebulae, demonstrating that it is nebula season. The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachon in Chile had first light on the world’s largest camera on June 23. Later this year Rubin will begin its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, scanning the sky for 10 years to precisely capture every visible change.

< https://rubinobservatory.org/news/first-imagery-rubin >

Outreach Chair Bill Murray reported on three upcoming outreach events:

Friday, September 12: only 4 have volunteered to take scopes for 100 observers at the Plainsboro Preserve. We need more please.

Week of September 22-26: Active Day Of Hamilton is seeking astronomers to give talks to their adult day care participants. Only Assistant Director Bob Vanderbie has volunteered so far. < https://www.activeday.com/locations/active-day-of-hamilton/ >

Thursday, November 13: Stone Bridge Middle School in Allentown NJ has invited AAAP to provide educational materials and stargazing, weather permitting, at their science fair. We manned a table there last year.

Observatory Co-Chair Dave Skitt reported that Washington Crossing State Park is getting a new visitor center but neither the parked JCP&L trucks nor the extra funding has enabled any improvements in the gates or roadway to our observatory.

A member reported great skies when attending the Maine Astronomy Retreat at the Medomak Retreat Center, August 18-24. < https://astronomyretreat.com/ >

A comment was made that we really need to get funding for a Mars Sample Return mission to bring back the numerous samples already collected and packaged by the Perseverance rover.

The meeting was adjourned at 2200.

As of September 8, we have 215 active members. So far in CY2025, renewals number 86 and expirations number 42, giving us a 67% retention rate. We have added 36 new members.