[Chaos-l] May's CHAOS meeting

[Jayme Hanzak]

Hello everyone, Walter Fowler and I attended the Morehead Program, "Our Vanishing Night", last night. It was very well attended by the general public. Amy Sayle  and Micke Jo Sorrell did a fantastic job presenting the light pollution issue to the audience. Amy did a terrific demonstration with a flash light, paper plate and paper cup. She demonstrated how covering the bright light of the flashlight and directing the light down, allowed us to see the paper plate more clearly than without the shield. 

We then went on a tour of the campus lighting around the area and looked at the new lights that will be installed around the campus. The lights will be full cutoff and a more white light as compared to the orange sodium vapor that are currently in place. 

I brought a telescope and at first, the observing looked grim, but the clouds actually cleared off and we had a fantastic view of Saturn that impressed all that looked through my little 6" reflector. 

I believe we had a lot of Dark Sky Advocates created last night.

Well done Morehead.
One other important notice. The event yesterday was sponsored by Chapel Hill Town Council Committee for Sustainability. It looks and sound to me that the iron is hot to help the town council come up with some lighting ordinances. All we have to do is step in help and get active.
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May's meeting is approaching and our guest speaker will be Jeff Regester. Mr. Regesters subject is, "All This Way for Two Minutes of Data"


Here is Jeff's bio from the Greensboro Tri-star event.


Jeff Regester is currently a physics teacher at Greensboro Day School in North Carolina. Prior to that he was an engineer and instructor in the Astronomy Department at Wellesley College (Massachusetts), and previously taught at Goucher College (Maryland), the McDonogh School (Maryland), and the University of Arizona, as well as the University of Arizona Astronomy Camp program for sixteen years. Mr. Regester is also a reserve Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. His wife, Martha, is Curator of Community Programs at the Natural Science Center; children Leah and Ben can often be found hanging out there as well.
 
So Make you plans to join us.

Jayme