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August



Here is what is happening...

The club calendar can be found here.




Club News

The Board Meeting will meet on August 3rd in Classroom #2 at the Discovery Center at 7:00pm.


The Membership meeting will be Friday August 13th at 7:00 pm in Classroom #2 of the Discovery Center.

Star Parties

Watch the BAS1 group for last minute star party information.

The next club star party is August 7th at Dedication Point. "Go/No-Go" calls will be posted on BAS1.



2010 Idaho Star Party

Information about the 2010 Idaho Star Party can be found here



SOHO EIT 304 Latest Image (click image for larger view)


Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

The SOHO project home page can be found here.


President's Letter

First, let me extend my congratulations to Leif Edmundson, the 1st recipient of the Mary Schneider Memorial BAS Volunteer of the Year Award. As our winner, Leif will receive a beautifully framed certificate at this month's membership meeting, along with a complementary family membership in BAS for 2011. Everyone should start logging their astronomy-related volunteer activities for next year's vote, which will cover the period from 01 July 2010 through 30 Jun 2011.

On Tuesday, 03 August and Thursday, 05 August, BAS will be holding a public day/night star party at DCI as part of their "Idaho Space Days" celebration for 2010. If you are interested in joining us for either or both days, please come on down. As usual, we'll be doing solar observing during the daytime and will commence evening observing after sunset around 9 p.m. BAS will also be holding their monthly board meeting at DCI on Tuesday evening, with the ISP planning committee meeting from 6:30 - 7 p.m. and the regular board meeting after that. As an added incentive to join us on Thursday, I have it on good authority that a local space celebrity will be at DCI that afternoon.

Regarding this month's membership meeting, it will take place on Friday, 13 August at 7 p.m. in Classroom #2 at the Discovery Center of Idaho. Steve Bell will be giving the presentation on this year's observing challenge for ISP. Get ready to hunt for globular clusters!

The membership meeting also is the deadline for pre-registering for ISP. If you have your registration submitted by the meeting, you can still get the ridiculously low rate of $12.50/family. In addition, you can still purchase tickets to our "world famous" Star-B-Q for only $8/person as well as get in your order for the ISP t-shirts and hats. After this date, the registration rate goes to $25/family and Star-B-Q tickets go up to $10/person until we run out of the limited supply of tickets. You will also not be able to order either a t-shirt or a hat after the meeting (and you will kick yourself for not getting one!). I want to strongly encourage you to register for ISP as soon as possible.

If you are attending ISP and do not yet have a campsite at the park, you will need to go through the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation online reservation system to secure a site in the Eagle Cove campground "B" loop (as of 31 July, there are only six (6) sites left). You will need to pay the increased site rates that IDPR instituted beginning last month.

Lastly, I want to continue to encourage BAS members to volunteer at Bruneau Dunes State Park over weekends during the observing season. We want to accumulate at least 200 hours of volunteer service to demonstrate to the parks department that we are fully supportive of their efforts to bring astronomy to the citizens of our state. Volunteer activities at the observatory generally include operating one of the telescopes provided by the park and could even include giving a presentation on a topic of interest to the general public. Make sure when you volunteer that you inform Odo or Greg (observatory employees) that you are a BAS member so we receive proper credit for your hours.