Hamilton RASC members listening to Dr. Shelton
On Jan. 4, 2017, the Hamilton Centre met for its regular monthly meeting. Attendance was excellent, with about 50 people present, many from the general public, and everyone was looking forward to the lecture by Dr. Ian Shelton.
Ed Mizzi began the proceedings with a welcome to everyone. He displayed a slide with the agenda on it and briefly introduced the topics for the meeting. He mentioned several club activities and advantages of membership and encouraged people to get involved.
Ed introduced Bob Prociuk, Board member, whose portfolio includes vice president and memberships. Bob discussed the benefits of membership at the Hamilton Centre and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He welcomed both new members and members of the public. Our newest members include Brynne Degenhardt, Thomas Jensen, Chris Newhouse, Tyler Park, John Reinsborough and Lesley Reinsborough-Degenhardt. Our total is now 114.
Then Ed Mizzi discussed outreach and also encouraged members to participate in these fun and enjoyable activities with the public. Ed
Dr. Shelton discussing SN 1987A
mentioned the event on Dec. 15 at Stephen Lewis Secondary School in Mississauga, where Ed did a talk twice, during the day, to 2 grade nine science groups of 65 and 80 students respectively. It was a very engaging event with several great questions from the audience. Hopefully the rest of the 2017/2018 year will see similar fun events, with more members participating.
Ed Mizzi then described a program discovered by Board member Troy McCoy, called Gaia Ground based Observational Service for Asteroids (Gaia-GOSA). Members can easily get involved in assisting this program with the goal of gathering photometric light curves of a selection of asteroids. Sounds like an exciting science project.
Next, Ed gave a preview of next month’s speaker, Dr. Laura Smith from McMaster University, who will talk about dark matter and dark energy. It should be very interesting.
We then took a 10 minute break to give people a chance to stretch and chat with fellow members.
Dr. Ian Shelton at the January Monthly meeting
After the break, Muhammad Basil Ahmad introduced the night’s speaker, giving an excellent summary of the work that Dr. Shelton has been involved with and a brief introduction to his topic.
Dr. Shelton then proceeded to display his passion for astronomy by reliving the moment he witnessed SN1987A, a super nova event that occurred 30 years ago and is still being studied. It was obvious that this event had a lifelong effect on Dr. Shelton, both personally and professionally. He used several excellent slides to help describe the event and his subsequent research.
Muhammad thanked Dr. Shelton with a gift of appreciation for the time he spent both preparing and providing his findings.
Ed then adjourned the meeting but not before informing members of three upcoming meetings:
– January Board meeting, at the observatory, Jan. 11, 8 PM. All members are welcome.
– February Monthly meeting, at the Legion, Feb. 1, 8 PM. Members and the Public are welcome.
– February Board meeting, at the observatory, Feb. 8, 8 PM. All members are welcome.
Thanks to all who attended. Thanks to Abigail Hughes for taking photos of the proceedings.
by Ed Mizzi
