Minutes of the monthly meeting of Sangamon Astronomical Society held January 17, 2004 at 7:00 PM at the Morgan Stanley office on 3731 W. Wabash Avenue, Springfield, IL.

The members of the Board of Directors are:

Larry Hardy
Mike Robertson
Ray Watt
Fred Pilcher
Glenn Cunningham

Starting with Today's meeting the board will be meeting at 6pm to discuss business matters so that the 7pm meeting can be
devoted to astronomy. All members are welcome to the 6pm meeting.

Updates

Treasury Report:    Clarke Woodruff presented the financial statement for 2003. 

Planning and Grants:    no report

Observing Program:    The web site has been updated with info on the observing programs with more to come.

Public and Private Events:    Kerry Wright proposes the club do "how to use your scope" project for local communities. Possibly at Site M. The Owen Marsh school will hold an event to promote science and has invited the SAS to come and setup scopes to show up to 300 kids. The event will be Thursday Jan. 22nd from 6 to 8pm. All SAS Members are asked to be there. We need scopes!!! The school is just off Old Jacksonville Road by the VFW hall underneath the blue water tower.

Star Party:    Ray could not be here tonight. Meeting to be rescheduled. Dates for Star Party Sept 16-18th.

Glenn Cunningham kicked off the new SAS Trivia 50/50 Split. Eight Members offered up a dollar to try an answer the question "Name the four major moons of Jupiter". Rick Branson won the contest and donated the winnings to the club. Thanks Rick!

Presentation

We had a very special presentation by Dr. Charles Schweighauser, Chairman of the
Department of Astronomy, Physics, and Environmental Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield and Mr. Larry
Gorski, Head of the Photometric Group and the UIS Observatory. Dr. Schweghauser gave a very in depth look at how one could determine how much energy a star gives off. While Mr. Gorski showed us how to measure the subtle changes in star magnitudes. 

The SAS would like to thank Dr. Schweghauser and Mr. Gorski for a wonderful presentation.

The meeting was adjourned at 9pm.