We have had quite a few club events since the last meeting and I truly appreciate everyone’s time. The cookout was a blast and I probably ate too much. Go figure! We all
agreed it would be cool to bring a portable fire pit out there for our next one. Maybe
even a guitar! I hope we can do that again!
My thanks to Bob Baer for his presentation at the September meeting (and to Heidi for
setting it up) I’ll admit I had to look up a “Lunt Telescope” as I hadn’t heard of that.
Bryan, did you develop those? Ends up several SIU people are going to set up for the
October 14th annular eclipse at a private residence near Santa Fe, New Mexico. And
oddly enough, the guy that owns the private residence is a guy I grew up with! What
are the odds? Now I’m thinking . . .why didn’t I realize that ahead of time and make
plans to go stay with him? Hindsight, right?
But my hope is I’ll get to watch this month’s solar eclipse (partial eclipse for us) with
you! We’ll be setting up at the “Market at the Square” at 7am on October 14th. I
emailed the powers that be who run the market to see if we can stick around a little
longer than noon and we can. The start/stop times for the event are in the “Looking
Up” column and the set-up is in “club news.”
Thanks to those who helped out at the last open house! I believe that was Michael Frazier, Bob Rubendunst, John Richmann, Erik Johnson, Duane Stafford, and Angie
Boesche. I hope I didn’t miss anyone! I apologize if I did. And while I’m apologizing –
no, the September open house was not our last one. In doing this newsletter then
writing for three newspapers and scripts for radio, my brain sometimes thinks a month
ahead. I had just typed “our last open house” but I was writing about October. We
had a group from Clark-Lindsey Village that I expected and I think they had a good time.
Weird having a 15-passenger van show up in the lot! I helped plan that and, in retrospect, I probably should have scheduled them on a different night. But it worked out!
My wife works at C-L and said that several showed her Moon photos on their phones
the following Monday.
I look forward to Erik Johnson’s presentation at our October meeting. Erik visited
“down under” this summer. We will also have officer nominations. You’ve heard me
plead about this many times. It would really be nice to
get some new people involved. NOT that the current
officer corps isn’t doing their job – they are doing great!
I’m happy to mentor anyone who would like to be president and keep in mind the newsletter is a separate job
(which I would still do if appointed).
Lastly, I made an announcement at the last club meeting.
If you’ll permit me to “get personal” for a moment, I’m
very happy to add another item to my business card, the
title of “grandpa.” Hayden Leake was born on September
13th at 10:20pm, coming in at 7 lbs, 2 oz. Congrats to my
son and his wonderful wife. I haven’t had him look
through a telescope yet but that’ll come in time. I can
still remember showing my daughter Saturn’s rings for
the first time. She said “I can see Saturn, daddy!” Those
are precious moments.
Clear Skies,